This Is Why We Fight
by ChloeRhiannonX
Summary: It's been 5 months since the disease escaped the lab, though Courtney's starting to believe it was never really a disease at all. More like a plague. Maybe an experiment by the government to stop their ever growing population that went horribly wrong. Either way, all she knows now is that she had to survive long enough to get rescued- if she ever gets rescued. NaNo 2013 winner.
1. Where It Ends

Warning. This story contains violence, swearing and sexual content as well as an abundence of different pairings and characters from the Total Drama series. Not to mention that from this point onwards, many of those characters will be OOC to fit better into the story. If none of that bothers you, enjoy.

Pairings (mentioned, implied and crushes): Courtney/Gwen, Courtney/Duncan, Gwen/Duncan, Courtney/Scott, Gwen/Cody, Courtney/Alejandro, Alejandro/Heather, Zoey/Mike.

The story idea hit me after I saw a drawing on Tumblr by skeeterdayz, an idea she had from naeshi...So really, thank you to both of them for inspiring me to write this fic. I am so happy and proud of the way it has turned out, and I really hope you enjoy it too.

This is 50,509 words long with 14 chapters, one prologue, one epilogue, an alternative ending and a bonus chapter.  
Oh yeah, there's a long journey ahead of us...

And now, without further adieu, this is my NaNoWriMo 2013 novel...

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**Prologue**

**Where It Ends**

The smell of blood was overpowering, and if it had been this much in the normal world Courtney would have thrown up. But this wasn't the normal world and Courtney was long used to the blooded air that filled her lungs on a daily basis. In fact, she learnt to be more aware when she couldn't smell blood because it meant that the area wasn't infected yet. Areas didn't stay uninfected for long.

Her hands finished wrapping the bandage tightly around her ankle. It wasn't perfect and ten months ago it would have bothered her, now she was just glad she could find a bandage.

Slowly, she stuck her head around the side of the bin. Looking both ways, she found there was no one there. Praying it would stay that way and the ones that had been following her had gone, she made a break for it. Two streets she managed to make it before she saw the first one. Swallowing her breath, she ducked down behind an abandoned car. Courtney could hear the lump of a thing grunting, followed closely by crashing metal- it was searching the trash cans.

She slid herself under the car, keeping low to ground and evening out her breath as best she could. She reached one hand behind her, pulling her walkie-talkie from her tool belt and turning the volume off. The last thing Courtney needed was any noise distraction. The only plan she had was to search the pockets of her tool belt for any sort of item that could be used in this situation. Stale gum? No. Pocket knife? No. Bouncy ball?

_'It could work,' _she told herself, thinking it over. She slid further along the floor, glad it was not gravel- she'd made that mistake before. Courtney couldn't make out much of her surroundings as the streetlights were all smashed, and sun had set a good hour ago- though she wasn't entirely sure since the last attack she had suffered had left her without a watch and she was yet to find a new one.

Carefully, she reached her arm out from under the car, bouncy ball in hand. Gathering her strength she threw it, quickly retracting her arm before it saw her. She waited, unable to see the face, but the grunts had ceased. Courtney kept her eyes trained on what she assumed was its legs, watching carefully until it shuffled away, in the exact direction she had tossed the ball.

_'Ha,' _she smirked to herself, almost forgetting her pain in her triumph. _'And Gwen said it would be useless.' _

Courtney was always collecting all sorts of random junk. Gwen, her sort of partner and only real friend in this messed up new world, had gained a new need to scold her for it. But Courtney was a CIT, or at least had been back in the normal world, and knew that one way or another, this junk was going to come in handy. Like the bouncy ball. She had been carrying that thing around for her for about three weeks now, and it had definitely come in handy when it came to saving her life.

Courtney couldn't wait to brag to Gwen about it. And speaking of her partner, she knew she should be running off to find her.

The teenager managed to get herself out from under the car without too much fuss. It had been a long ten months of doing the same thing over and over again, so it was no big deal to do now. Back in the beginning was a different story, but Courtney preferred not to think to those days. Memories of the past, of a time when she didn't have to live on the move with a stranger she had only known for a matter of weeks, were much too painful.

Shaking her head free of all those thoughts, Courtney hobbled along the streets, her throbbing ankle starting to act up. She tried to ignore the pain, hoping that if she forgot about it it would go away. She prayed she could get to the safe house without too much trouble. After everything she had been through so far she didn't think she was asking for too much by not wanting trouble. However, in this messed up place, trouble always found a way to get to her.

At the end of the street Courtney could see the low glow of a burning candle in the top floor window of an abandoned house. Most houses were abandoned by now, with no remaining humans in sight. The candle was the sign that Courtney had been looking for; this was the safe house. She moved faster, trying her best to ignore the burning she felt spreading through her lower leg. It was starting to spread and she needed to rest soon.

She reached the door and looked around for any sign of them, but when she drew up short she knocked on the door. Three fast, two slow. It was the code they had designed to help differentiate allies from enemies.

The door swung open and Courtney was forcefully dragged inside towards the darkness.

"Shit, _Cody_!" The brunette hissed, her ankle rolling beneath her weight.

"What?" The innocent kid asked, and though she couldn't see his face, she knew he was pulling that face. The one that made him look like an angel that could do no wrong. When, in reality, he was their weapon supplier.

Courtney took a guess of where he was and threw her arm around his shoulders, leaning on him for support. Cody wrapped his arm around her waist and guided her towards the staircase.

"I was bit."

"You were bit?" Cody almost dropped Courtney in shock, but she kept a tight hold on him. Feeling her way in the dark, Courtney took a seat on the edge of the stairs and started scooting herself upwards one step at a time. Cody's shallow breathing was in front of her, so at least he hadn't run off in fear of getting infected himself. "How did you get bitten? How did you get away? Are you feeling funny? Do you need to lie down? Should I get out of here? Are you going to eat me?" As helpful as Cody was, he was also the most annoying person Courtney had ever met- and Courtney had met some pretty annoying people in the last few months.

Courtney ignored everything he said and felt her way along the hallway to the room with the candle glowing in the window. Cody continue to follow her and she collapsed onto the double bed. She could feel the dust clouds jumping around her, trying to guess what happened here. Maybe the family saw what was going on and escaped. Maybe one of them got infected and attacked the rest. It could have gone either way, Courtney knew from experience.

She bit down on her lower lip, scolding herself for thinking that way.

Cody sad down on the end of the bed, taking Courtney's bandaged ankle in his lap. The bandage was already starting to turn a dark crimson color. The blood had overtaken the dirt. Carefully, he unwrapped it, inspecting the wound as best he could with such little light. A lot of the houses still had electricity, but turning on a light would attract a lot of unwanted attention.

"Courtney..." Cody gasped, lifting her leg up by the ball of her foot. "This is disgusting." The outline of the teeth was hard to make out through the blood stains, but it was obvious to those who had witnessed the same thing happen time and time again what had gone down. Courtney was lucky to be alive. "I-I think it's infected," he continued to babble on. "Your leg looks a little green. Maybe we should try to stitch you up-"

"You're not a doctor. I don't trust you with a needle and thread anywhere near my leg," Courtney quickly snapped at him. Cody stared her down, chewing on the inside of his cheek, something he often did when trying to decide what to do. Not that Courtney and Gwen let him take charge often, but if they ever had enough time, they let him. If he had enough time to think it through, Cody could come up with some wonders, but as the three of them were in a constant state of moving through the country, there was very little time to let Cody think up plans.

"What happened?" He asked, still inspecting the ankle. There wasn't much he could do but look if she wasn't willing to let him help.

"After we separated I was chased down the avenue. I tripped over something- I think it was a car part- and it got me. Sunk it's teeth into my ankle before I could shoot it in my head. Used up my last bullet...but I lost my gun anyway, so it doesn't matter." Courtney swallowed hard as another wave of pain hit her. "I managed to hide from the others down a side ally behind some dumpsters and I wrapped myself up there."

Five knocks on the door. Three fast, two slow. Cody quickly abandoned his post as Courtney's doctor and ran down back down the staircase. Courtney rolled her eyes; typical Cody. He would rather play doctor with an uninjured Gwen than with a dying Courtney. She could hear them whispering downstairs, no doubt in her mind that Cody had already told the tale of how she had gotten bitten.

Courtney peered down at her ankle. The blood was thick and sticky, marking the bed sheets as it slid down her skin. Her body would jolt with every wave of pain, spilling it everywhere. It was starting to slow down, though, and would most likely stop within the next hour, but only if she could keep it bandaged up. She tried to bend to get the bandage she had been using previously, which Cody had dropped on the floor in his quick escape, but the pain that shot through her leg was too much.

Even in the faint light that she had, it was obvious that her the veins in her leg had already started to pop out, turning sickly green in color. It was the first sign that she was turning. Courtney hit her head on the pillow, willing herself not to cry when another teenage girl burst into the room.

Gwen's skin was luminous even against the background of the dark house, like she had never seen sunlight. The rest of her was hard to make out until she had jumped onto the bed beside Courtney. Her eyes were full of worry as they swept over Courtney's body. So far it was only her leg, but it would spread, there was no doubt about it. Gwen laid a shaking hand on Courtney's forehead and Courtney couldn't hold back the tears anymore. She started to sob.

"Just do it," Courtney sniveled. "Just shoot me already and be done with it." Gwen shook her head and Courtney could feel drops of tears falling onto her forehead. "You don't have a choice!"

"I'm not letting you go this easily," Gwen choked on her own words. "We've come too far for it to end like this." Courtney knew she was talking about more than one thing, but with Cody in the room she wouldn't go into the details. Poor kid was too innocent for his own good. "I am not giving up on you."

"Gwen-" But the sudden crack from downstairs silenced her. Another and another. Something was trying to break down the door. Gwen rolled off the bed and ran to the window to check. She snuffed out the candle, but it was obvious that they were here.

"I thought you said you lead them away!" Cody yelled, gathering his things into his backpack.

"They must have followed me." Gwen grabbed the bandage from the floor and quickly wrapped Courtney's ankle back up. "They're getting smarter."

"What are you doing?" Courtney asked over the noise. "Stop it!" She wiggled her ankle out of Gwen's grasp, but it was already re-wrapped. "Just leave me here!"

"No." Gwen's voice was stern enough to stop Courtney from arguing. Gwen was rarely a serious person, but this one instance made her more determine than ever to reach the island and get Courtney the help she needed. "I've already told you, I'm not letting you go this easily." She turned to Cody. "Make a distraction, I'll get Courtney out the back door." Cody nodded his head and started rifling through his backpack for something useful. Gwen hooked one arm under Courtney's back and the other under her legs, picking her up and rushing towards the staircase. "You're gonna be alright," she whispered, but both girls knew that she was lying.

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A/N: This is just the start...

Well, not really, it's like the mid-way point...But you get my drift XD

Anyways, yes! This is my NaNo story, the one I have spent the whole of November fussing over, and now it is finally here for all of you to read!

I will update it every weekend! Saturday or Sunday, I can't promise which day because I'm not always the best at keeping specific promises, so you'll just have to settle for a general weekend update day! It should take us through to the end of March in 17 weeks time. So, I hope you are all prepared to stick with me for so long, because we're gonna see this one through, guys, we're gonna see it through.

Also, bonus, I WON'T be posting A/N's! Just this one to explain everything, and the warning at the beginning of this one too! All reviews with a logged in user will be replied to via PM, even if its just to say thank you (though I do appreciate conversations too XD).

Thank you to everyone who helped me through the month of November with your encouragement! Thank you to Lila and Andy for the amazing battle of story titles that has kept me entertained all month long...AND LILA WON! Yes, Desire at gunpoint/TheScarletDahlia picked out the title This Is Why We Fight and for the whole month it has been battling out in a poll AND IT WON! So, congrats Lila!

Thank you all for reading this opening Prologue, and I shall see you in the reviews/Epilogue!

Love, ChloeRhiannonX


	2. Where It Starts

_Five Months Earlier_

**Chapter One**

**Where It Starts**

It wasn't for her lack of trying, but the door refused to budge. The short figure had been attempting to shoulder her way in since long past sunset and was only now starting to worry about the noise she was making. It had been a long four months, but she knew better now than she did back then. Noise, among various other things, attracted unwanted attention.

Finally giving up on the door, she sneaked around back and found a few windows open. They were higher up, which did mean that not a lot of people would be able to make the jump, and, even with a running start, she barely made it through. She scraped her knee along the brick wall and tumbled to the floor the other side was thud.

"Fuck," she hissed under her breath, careful to not be too loud. There didn't seem to be anyone around, but the air had a eerily quiet tone to it. The girl lowered her face mask- a simple off-white handkerchief that had seen better days, wrapped around her mouth and nose with some wire. People had said the airborne disease had long gone before she had even left her hometown, but she found it was better to be safe than sorry over a rumor that was most likely not true.

The door was dead bolted, as she had expected, but the barricade of desks and chairs took her by surprise. Then again, a school building was an obvious place to start a safe house. There had probably been a horde of people gathered in here in the beginning, hiding out, staying safe, before they found out that large groups of people weren't the best way to go about this strange new world.

The school building had looked a lot bigger on the outside, while the inside seemed to be made up of more hallways than classrooms. It was easy too get lost, but also very easy to hide. She was on edge as she inspected each room she passed. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary for an abandoned school: upturned desks, scattered chairs, and more dust than the inside of a math textbook. Near the back of the building she found a wide-set staircase that led up to the second floor. She wished she still had her flashlight to pull out just in case, but she'd dropped it while running the night before. It had been too risky to stop for a few seconds to pick it up, her pursuers weren't going to slow down for her.

The second floor was much like the first, so much so that she already knew what direction to travel in. She started back towards the front of the building, taking a good look through all of the rooms. If one of the things was hiding anywhere in the building, it could jump out at any second.

She continued her search before coming to a dead end down the last corridor. She peeked through the narrow window of the final door. The room was empty. Slowly, she pushed the door open, cringing when it gave a loud squeak. The classroom itself looked like the rest. The walls were decorated with sheets of paper and the lino flooring was covered in thick black lines from where past students had pushed their chairs back heavily. Staring at the room, it made her nostalgic for a time when she could have sat in a classroom. She would have given anything for a chemistry mishap or a few laps around the field, anything that meant normality. She craved for the world she had left behind.

She took a few steps in, deciding this was as good as room as ever to set up camp. The window that stretched across the far wall showed a great view of the city skyline, perfect for noticing any unwanted arrivals.

She continued to walk in and-

**THWACK!**

The pain spread across her back and she crumpled to the floor, protecting her face and rolling onto her side. She remembered when she eight and she had climbed the tree in her backyard. Her mother had warned her not to, but she couldn't resist the adventure. It wasn't until her little brother had followed her did things turn bad. They'd argued on one of the lower branches over who should get to sit on it, and in the end he'd pushed her too hard and she'd fallen to the ground. The oxygen rushed from her lungs and the pain from her arm-which had turned out to be broken-had been too much for her young body to take. This reminded her of this.

A slender figure stood above her, though she couldn't make it out very well. They were definitely holding a baseball bat- or at least she hoped it was a baseball bat and not a steel rod; that would have done some damage.

"Holy fuck!" She screamed, rolling on the floor. She wanted to sit up, or at least sweep her leg out in the dark and trip this other person up, but she couldn't bring herself to do so. Either she was in too much pain, or understood that if someone had entered her hiding space she would have attacked them too, but she knew she wasn't going to fight back.

"Y-You can talk?" The voice was shaky, but determined, as if she wanted to take control of the situation but had no idea how to.

"Yes I can fucking talk!" She yelled back, "Why the fuck wouldn't I?"

"I thought you were a zombie," the voice replied, tossing the bat onto the floor, not feeling so threatened anymore. She picked up a flashlight and shone it down on the girl on the floor, who was now looking at her with a funny expression that she couldn't place. "What?"

"Zombie?" She asked, the side of her mouth tugging up as she held her hands to her back, the pain momentarily forgotten.

"You haven't seen them?" There was a glint of hope in her voice, though her face was still masked by the lack of light, the flashlight still pointing to the floor.

"I've seen them," she said, attempting to sit up. "Why do you think I'm hiding out here?" The flashlight fell to the floor and the other girl knelt down, trying to help steady her into a sitting position, but she seemed content with lying down. "I just...I never thought of them as zombies before." She chuckled at the thought. Zombies were a fictional creature that only appeared in movies and comics, out here in real life there was just an advanced illness going around.

"Sorry," the other girl mumbled, fiddling for her light source again. "For hitting you." She seemed uncomfortable with the idea of apologizing, like it was some sort of foreign concept to her.

They sat in silence for a long time as the clock ticked away on the wall. The flashlight had been turned off to conserve the battery and now they couldn't see each other at all.

She was still in pain, but leaning her shoulders against the cool floor was helping it ease off. The other girl had curled up in the corner in what she assumed was a sleeping bag from the noise that emerged as she'd struggled into it.

"Are you hungry?" Before she could answer, the other girl had slid a small packet across the floor towards her. Upon closer inspection she found it to be a breakfast bar. In the normal world, she would never have eaten something so healthy, but right then she would have given anything for a decent meal. The other girl started eating one too, talking between mouthfuls. "I'm Courtney, by the way."

"Gwen," she replied, making sure to savor every bite she took. It had been a long thirty-six hours since she had last eaten. It had been her last packet of rice that she had managed to find in a kitchen in an abandoned house in her hometown. She's cooked it in a different house for breakfast, though someone else had already raided that one of all the food. That had been before she had set out for the day once again, ending up at the school.

The silence between them was uncomfortable to say the least. It had been a long time since either had been in another persons company, so much so that they had both forgotten how to be social to another human. The 'zombies' weren't exactly great company.

"So..." Gwen eased herself into a sitting position, the pain not feeling so heavy. "How long have you been here?"

Courtney shrugged. "I don't remember...maybe a month?" Gwen nodded, understanding how hard it was to calculate time. She wasn't sure how long it had really been since she had been on the move herself. "I-I left home and went to a few other houses instead...but no where was as safe as it is here." There sounded as if there was more to that story than had been shared, but Gwen was also biting her own tongue after that. She didn't know if Courtney was trustworthy, or if she was going to stab her in the back, take her supplies and run. "There's no where else for me to go, so I'm going to stay here. There's a ton of food in the cafeteria and the building is out of the way enough so that the zombies don't bother me." Gwen did have to admit that it was a great plan, though a slightly foolish one to just assume the virus wasn't going to get you from here.

"I'm heading East," she said. She licked the wrapper in her hand, making sure to get every last bit that she could; who knew when she would eat next? "The Island of Newfoundland is uninfected, so I'm heading there."

Even though it was almost pitch black in the room, Gwen could see Courtney shaking her head. "No where is uninfected. An airborne disease doesn't just stop at the boarder. I wouldn't be surprised if it's already made it's way through half the globe by now. It's been, what? Five months? No one's safe from it."

"At least it's a better chance than waiting around here for a rescue that's never going to happen." Gwen tried to get to her feet to do a dramatic storm away, but the pain in her back hadn't subsided enough and she saw spots. Collapsing onto the cold floor, Courtney rolled her a bottle of water which Gwen gratefully took. It was soon followed by two small pills which she swallowed down without a second look, hoping they weren't some kind of drug. Her snap judgment was that Courtney was an innocent teenager, like herself, who just wanted a place to hide out until all of this had blown over. That was, however, where they differed. Gwen didn't believe this was going to blow over on its own.

"How do you even know that Newfoundland is safe?" Courtney asked, getting agitated.

"One of my neighbors has a friend out there who called after the virus had spread and she had no idea what was going on," Gwen explained, her voice growing louder. "I know it's no guarantee, but it's the best I have! You're sitting around here waiting for a rescue party that's never going to come. We're on our own. You're not some damn Princess who's going to get rescued!"

"I'm not waiting for anyone to come rescue me! I know as well as you do that this world has gone to hell! But at least I'm not on some suicide mission for some dwindling hope that doesn't actually exist!" Courtney's voice matched Gwen's, neither backing down. But after a few minutes of attempting to stare each other out, though they couldn't actually see each other, Courtney leaned back against the wall behind the door, the spot she had picked for her campsite. "And you're right," she whispered. "I'm not a Princess."

Gwen scrunched her forehead, not sure where that really fitted into the conversation, but if there was one thing she had found out about Courtney in the half-hour since she had whacked her with a baseball bat, it was that she didn't like to explain herself. Not pushing the subject, Gwen slowly laid back down on the floor, resting her head on the pillow she'd been provided with.

"You can stay here tonight," Courtney voice floated across their living area once again. "But you really should leave in the morning." Even if she wanted to go, Gwen wouldn't have been able to move enough to continue on. The acetaminophen had targeted her headache, but not done so much good for the backache.

It wasn't until she had woken up the next morning did Gwen even realize she had fallen asleep. The pain that had plagued her last night seemed to not be hurting anymore, though she was sure there would be some bruising. She rolled onto her side, noting that Courtney had tossed a blanket over her at some point last night. She could see the other girl from her position, curled up in a red sleeping bag. If someone opened the door full swing, she would have gotten smashed in the face. Behind the door seemed like a stupid place to camp-out, but Gwen also knew that if she had been in the middle of the room then she would be easily spotted.

With the sunlight streaming in through the window, Gwen didn't have to struggle to make out the appearance of the other teenager. Now able to see her, Gwen noticed she had fully Hispanic features, but was sure she hadn't detected an accent last night. Her skin was a rich caramel, a stark contrast to Gwen, who could easily give Snow White a run for her money. Her hair was a few tones darker, with a patchy birthmark on her right forearm, and when she opened her eyes they were the darkest of all.

Courtney stretched out like a cat: arching her back inside the sleeping bag and forcing her arms out in front of her. She blinked a few times and Gwen saw dark clouds roll across her eyes as she did. She noted that Courtney was giving her a one over, like she had just been doing. Gwen wasn't at all self-conscious about the way she looked and had never been one of those girls who caked themselves in make-up to hide their insecurities.

"You're still here," Courtney spoke with a yawn. "I thought you would be long gone by now." She got out from her sleeping bag, using it as a seat instead. Gwen widened her eyes a few times, trying to help herself wake up. She threw the blanket back to Courtney, mumbling a thank you.

"I um-I need supplies," Gwen said, retrieving her handkerchief face-mask that had fallen from around her neck during the night. She got to her feet, glad that the only pain she felt was now a dull thumping between her shoulder blades. Courtney nodded her head and got to her feet. Grabbing her baseball bat and two flat backpacks, she left the room, and Gwen followed closely, not leaving anything of hers behind.

They walked in silence through the hallways and down the staircase. Gwen was lost in her thoughts. She wasn't sure what part of Canada she was in anymore. After coming across a group of infected huddled together in an alleyway opening, she had forgotten all city signs and ran, ending up at the school once she had managed to shake them. Wherever she was, it must have been a small town because this school wouldn't have been able to hold much more than three hundred students, and it was no where near classy enough to be a private school.

Courtney had taken them down to the cafeteria and through to the kitchen. She searched around some of the cupboards, adding all sorts to both the backpacks while Gwen stood and watched in awe. She really knew how to take charge of a situation when she tried.

"I know it's not much, but it's all I can really spare," Courtney said, handing one of the backpacks over to Gwen and slinging the second over one shoulder herself. She didn't know what she meant by 'not much' because the bag was fuller than her refrigerator at home had ever been, and she gave a thankful nod for it being so.

"I guess I'll exit through the window," Gwen said as they walked into the foyer, motioning with her head towards the barricade.

A smile played on Courtney's lips, obviously proud of what she had achieved. "I wasn't expecting company," she tried to joke, but it fell flat.

Gwen tossed the backpack onto the window ledge, hefting herself up beside it, she turned back to face Courtney. Though they had only known each other for one night, Gwen felt a sort of sadness towards leaving. She couldn't remember the last time she had talked to an actual person, and she had no idea when the next time would be, either.

"Good luck, I guess," she said awkwardly, shifting her green eyes away from the other girl.

"Yeah," Courtney mumbled back. "You too."

With one final look, Gwen threw herself to floor outside the school building. It was higher than she'd remembered from yesterday, and the pain her back soared. She refused to cry out. Collecting herself, Gwen set off in the direction she had been heading in yesterday, grateful for the rising sun to guide her.

Courtney had retreated back to her classroom and over to the window. She watched Gwen's retreating figure limp away down the empty street. The school was completely alone for a mile radius each way, with only a once neatly kept field across from it, that had now grown into a jungle that she could only pray didn't house any zombies. She could see the tops of buildings just over the long-grass, and as beautiful as it looked with the sun shining down, it was just an appearance.

Courtney continued to stay at the window for a long ten minutes after Gwen had disappeared over the hill. She was about to wander of to the library to find herself a book to keep occupied, when she noticed the sloppy figures travelling down the road from the other direction. Without a second glance, she skidded across the floor to her campsite and hurriedly stuffed her sleeping bag into its case. She rounded up her other belongings into the backpack, grateful that she had had the sense to fill it up with the other one, and adjusted the straps to her shoulders. She threw the sleeping bag strap across her right shoulder and under her left arm, letting it rest against the backpack. Courtney grabbed her baseball bat and bolted down the hallways to the staircase, retracing her steps from not that long ago. She jumped up onto the window ledge that Gwen had left through and copied her actions. The full weight of the backpack crushed her to the floor, but Courtney scrambled to her feet with haste, not even bothering to wipe the mud from the knees of her once designer jeans. If she had done that six months ago, Courtney would have freaked out, now she was too busy running down the road after the girl that had invaded her hiding spot. The old Courtney would never have run anywhere other than a treadmill, but this Courtney was more determined to not get eaten by zombies.

"GWEN!" The Hispanic teenager bellowed when she saw her off in the distance. Courtney knew that raising her voice would attract the zombies to their location, she just hoped she would be able to outrun them faster than they could catch up.

Gwen stopped in her tracks, turning around to see the other girl heading at full speed towards her. She hadn't expected to be followed and wondered if she had managed to knock some sense into Courtney after their argument last night.

"Can I help you?"

"I saw-" Courtney cut herself off, panting for air. "I saw z-zombies," she said, bending over to rest her hands on her knees. "They were heading toward the school. I-I had to get out." She leaned against an abandoned car on the side of the road while Gwen turned to face the horizon. They hadn't caught up with them yet, so they knew they had time. "Besides," Courtney continued, a smirk on her face. "You stole my flashlight." Gwen let out a laugh, the first laugh in what felt like a decade. Deciding that having someone to watch her back wasn't the worst thing in the world, she let Courtney take the lead as they continued to speed walk down the long road to the next town.


	3. Where It Comes Out

**Chapter Two**

**Where It Comes Out**

The engine rattled, a dying sound echoing through the empty surroundings. Gwen scoffed, walking away from the car before she decided to knock Courtney out for being so stupid.

"I know what I'm doing," was the phrase she got over and over again. But, yet, the engine wasn't working too well. This was the third car they'd tried and Gwen was starting to give up all hope. She wanted to abandon Courtney and walk off on her own, but after only four days of working as a team, she wasn't so sure she could survive on her own again.

It wasn't until the fourth car, a black range rover coated in crusted mud and a thick layer of dust, did they get some luck.

"Yeah, baby!" Courtney exclaimed with joy as the car came to life before her very eyes. Gwen raised an eyebrow in surprise, eyeing the younger girl that was now perched in the drivers seat, ready to head-out. It had been Courtney's idea to stop walking and find other means of transportation. With the blisters on her feet the size of lipstick tubes, it was all getting too much for her. She missed the safety of her secluded classroom, but there was something about the danger of travelling that compelled her to keep going. Then again, she'd felt that compulsion before, and that had not ended well...

"Where did you learn to hot wire a car?" Gwen asked, hopping into the passenger seat.

The Hispanic teenager shrugged noncommittally. "My ex."

Gwen's eyebrow remained raised after that, but in the four days they had known each other, Courtney was still yet to open up. She gave one or two worded answers when she was uncomfortable and Gwen had been left to guess for the whole half-week. This was just another one of those times.

Courtney put the car into first gear and they reared forward. Gwen put her hands on the dashboard, stopping her head from cracking against it. "You're like twelve, you should not be driving!" She yelled.

"I have my learners," the brunette defended, though it wasn't very good reasoning. She restarted the engine and slowed her pace, edging the car from its spot in the middle of a circus of automobiles and onto a side street that was a lot less crowded.

They drove in silence for a while, something they did often. They didn't really know each other, though living in a world where zombies roamed free, it was easy to forget who you were.

Gwen got bored of watching the passing scenery and decided to rummage in the backseat for entertainment. There was nothing more than a few plastic bags filled with new clothes (this person had obviously not made it home from their shopping trip), but nothing that interested her.

Courtney swerved and Gwen hit her head against the roof. The clasp on her wristwatch had come loose and fallen to the floor. Courtney apologized, but it didn't stop the thumping in Gwen's head. She climbed into the backseat and slid her hand underneath for her watch. Instead she came across another plastic bag. This one was wrapped up tighter around a smaller object and when Gwen pulled it out she outwardly gasped in surprise.

The other girl took a look in the rear view mirror, only to find her partner holding a small handgun. Her eyes widened, but she didn't say anything.

Gwen checked the underneath of the seat again, but found no bullets, and she wasn't exactly sure how to check to see how many were in the gun already- though she was no expert, and had never actually held a gun before that moment, she could tell by the way it weighed down in her hand that it was loaded.

She carefully placed it on the seat next to her as she grabbed her watch and jumped back into the passenger seat. The term 'shotgun' suddenly had a whole new meaning to her.

They rode in silence for a lot longer this time."I'm sixteen, by the way," Courtney muttered. Gwen turned to look at her. She had guessed that her companion had been young, even though her presence was one of power and dominance. She didn't look very old, and Gwen was surprised she was as old as sixteen. "What about you?"

"I think I'm coming up for eighteen," she admitted. "I don't know what the date is...but my birthday is September 18th."

"I was sixteen in March." A wave of sadness washed over Courtney's face, though her eyes stayed glued to the windshield. She bit down on her lip before continuing her story. "I was supposed to start drivers ed that week, but it got cancelled because the instructor was sick. My birthday...it-it was a few days after the first outbreak." Gwen shifted in her seat, eager to listen to any explanation about herself Courtney would give. "I remember...we...we were at the breakfast table, and the morning news was on the TV in the kitchen. They mentioned the first outbreak in Yukon, about how some guy had gone crazy cannibalistic. He'd been feeling sick for a few days, so his wife took him out for dinner to cheer him up. Got to the middle of dinner and...well, it didn't end well, that's for sure." A shiver shot down Gwen's spine. She remembered hearing the same story on the radio when she'd been driving home from school. "I was going to ask if you thought the airborne disease had gone, but I suppose you don't," Courtney said, eyeing Gwen's handkerchief suspiciously. It laid around her neck today, still attached to the thin piece of bendable wire, the one she'd taken from a pipe cleaner out of desperation.

"I don't know what to believe, anymore," she answered honestly. "I guess the air disease can't just vanish, right? So what happened to it? Because we've both been exposed as long as everyone else has, so why are we uninfected?" Courtney shrugged, not sure if it was a rhetorical question or not. "My theory is that some people, like ourselves, though there can't be a lot of us, have managed to develop a sort of immunity to it because we've been exposed for so long to small amounts, and now the large amounts don't hurt us." Gwen was no physician and had no idea how the world of diseases and medicines worked. "But, because I'm probably wrong," she tapped her handkerchief, "I always keep this close."

The older teenager leaned her head against the window, hoping to drift off into sleep. She hadn't managed to get much of it last night. Between the two of them, they took it in turns to stand guard, and Gwen had taken the first watch. Once her shift had ended, she'd woken Courtney, and not long after she'd drifted to sleep (though it wasn't too hard to do when you were utterly exhausted), there had been an attack a few houses down from them. Gwen had spotted the light earlier in the evening, but had agreed with her partner to stay clear of it. Once they'd heard the terrified screams of some poor sap that had been trying to survive, they'd ran.

Now was the only time she'd been able to rest, though the midday sun was not doing her any favors. Then again, her brain felt like mush and she fell into a light slumber before long.

_She was at home with her brother, just the two of them, like old times. Gwen could feel the happiness radiating from her bones. They were sat at the kitchen table, chowing down on leftover Chinese food, catching up on all things sibling related. They talked with ease, something they had always done. There were no secrets between them and never had been. The day her younger brother had been born, Gwen had sworn to herself that she would always look out for him because that's what dad's did and Gwen had decided that she was the dad of this family now. His whole life, his older sister was someone he had counted on for everything, and that was really why he had no problem talking to her. _

_But Gwen had a problem. She turned her head for one minute to get a glimpse of her reflection in the mirror, just to tidy up her hair, but when she tried to turn back into the conversation, gone was the younger brother she cared so much about and in his place was the mutated version. His skin was grey and moldy, and she could smell it physically rotting away before her. His soft brown eyes had been replaced with lifeless black holes that were sizing up his next meal. _

_She called his name, a whisper at first. It got louder and louder the more she said it, screaming it at him before he lunged for her. _

"GWEN!" Courtney hissed, roughly shaking her companions shoulder. "You need to wake up and shut up!"

Gwen's eyes opened to see the setting sun dipping behind the horizon. It cast a soft, orange glow over the street they were in. Courtney had parked beside the sidewalk, though she could have just stopped in the middle of the road.

"You were screaming," Courtney told her when she was awake enough to process actual words. "I think there's zombies around here." The Hispanic teen bit her lip, turning her eyes back to the road. It wasn't dark yet, but it was going to be soon. The engine had been making too much noise, so she had cut it off for now. But it hadn't been the setting sun that had worried Courtney at this point, it was the all too familiar flash of green she could have sworn she saw in the window of one of the near-by houses. She knew it was a long shot, maybe her malnourished mind playing tricks on her, but she wanted to check it out. "Maybe we should stay here tonight," she suggested. Gwen was still a little dazed from her dream to contradict.

Together, they piled out of the car, gathering their belongings- Gwen's new handgun included- and headed down the street to the house that Courtney had pointed out.

Courtney couldn't say she wasn't nervous now that Gwen was carrying a gun. She remembered seeing her changing her shirt the day after they had teamed up and noticing the dark purple bruise that now lined her shoulders blades from where Courtney's bat had struck her. Not that Gwen seemed like the sort of person that would go against someone that trusted them just for petty revenge, but Courtney couldn't honestly say she knew that much about the girl.

The front door opened with ease and Courtney hoped there was a decent lock on it. She bit down on her lip as she took in the surroundings of the abandoned dwelling, looking out for the flash of green she had seen.

Gwen walked towards the first room, but game up short when she heard a loud grunt. Courtney froze. That type of grunt only came from one thing; zombies. The older girl turned over her shoulder, holding her finger to her lips in an attempt to hush her partner. Courtney was too scared to say anything anyway, and moved quickly to catch up to Gwen. Slowly, they both stuck their heads around the corner.

The family room looked beaten, with tattered curtains and dismantled furniture. Photo frames laid shattered on the floor, glass covering every bare floorboard. And there, slouching in front of the fireplace, was what the two had been dreading.

The zombie was hunched over, looking at them with sunken black eyes. His skin was a sickly grey and the further down his body it went it turned sickly green.

"Duncan," the brunette gasped. She only knew it was him for the lime green Mohawk that sat limply on his head, he was unrecognizable otherwise.

"You know him?" Gwen asked skeptically, turning off the safety catch on the gun.

"My ex," Courtney replied.

"Huh," came the other girls response as she lifted up the weapon. She wasn't entirely sure what she was doing with it, but there no way she was going to let him live. "I was just about to say the same thing." She fired the first shot, but the bullet whizzed past his head, making a hole in the wall. Gwen's arm hadn't be steady enough.

Courtney squeezed her eyes shut in shock and Duncan grunted again. He wasn't rushing forward to attack them like most other infected did, he was looking between them, almost calculating something inside his head. Courtney was about to suggest that he my be harmless, but Gwen had already fired another shot. This one was more accurate, hitting Duncan in the forehead, just to the right of his eyebrow ring. The force of the shot pushed him backwards and he hit his head on mantelpiece, collapsing onto the floor.

One of the girls looks away, the other shot another bullet through his brain for good measure. They were both shaking when it was over. Gwen from fear and adrenaline, Courtney from the sobs that racked her body.

"Let's find another house," Gwen said, slinging the backpack that had fallen to the floor over her shoulder. She left the house, her hand gripping the gun by the barrel.

Courtney didn't follow for a long time. She stayed staring at Duncan's lifeless body; yet another person claimed by the infection. It wasn't that she still had feelings for him, but she felt almost nostalgic. She wanted to go back to the times when the two of them had sneaked into her kitchen after the chef told them to stay out, and stolen enough food for their own mini-picnic up on her roof. They had laid on her old quilt, watching the stars and munching on grapes. It was the first time Duncan had said 'I love you' and Courtney had said it right back. Of course, she was only fifteen and he was only a year older, but back then it felt like real love to her. Until she'd found out he'd been seeing someone else behind her back. That was what had shattered her heart and that was why she felt more numb than sad as she continued to stare at her ex-boyfriend.

By the time she felt comfortable enough to leave, the sun had set and Courtney had to pull her flashlight from her backpack. She didn't know where her partner had gone and ended up wandering back down the car they had vacated. It was dangerous to be out at night, let alone out at night with a light source.

A few houses down in direction Courtney had been heading in, she heard her name called out. It was unmistakably Gwen.

"Turn that fucking thing off and get in here!" She hissed angrily. Courtney guessed that having to shoot your ex-boyfriend wasn't a substitute happy pill after all.

The brunette switched off the flashlight and half-jogged down to the house. It was in a better condition than the other one, like it had missed the zombie attack altogether. As soon as she was inside Gwen bolted the door. She had already closed all the drapes and Courtney could smell something cooking in a back room somewhere.

Ten minutes later they had their camp set up in the living room, both with a sleeping bag on a sofa each (they'd managed to find Gwen her own after raiding a few houses), and were eating beans straight from the tin. It was the usual routine that they had managed to set up during their short period of time together- travel all day, camp out at night.

The scraping of forks was all that could be heard, until Gwen was feeling well enough to bring up the elephant in the room.

"So, you and Duncan, huh?" She asked, not meeting the other girls gaze.

"So, you and Duncan, huh?" Courtney mimicked in return.

Gwen rolled her eyes, but she wasn't ashamed of their relationship. "We had a fling last year." She added a shrug for effect. "No big deal, really."

"I...I was with him last year." Was all that Courtney could manage to say. It made sense, somehow. She knew that he had cheated on her with an older woman who lived out of town, but she never thought she would end up having to survive a zombie apocalypse with that same girl.

Courtney pushed her half-empty tin away from her, suddenly not so hungry anymore. She laid herself down on the sofa, turned away from Gwen.

"I didn't know he had a girlfriend until he mentioned that you guys had broken up. He thought I'd be cool with it..." She shook her head. "If it makes you feel any better, I broke up with him right there." It didn't make her feel better. "He wasn't that good in the sack, anyway." That made her feel a little bit better. Courtney let out a watery laugh, brushing the tears from her cheeks.

"I wouldn't know," she admitted.

"Ah..." Gwen replied. "No offense, but that's probably why he went for someone else. You've always got to give them some- boys, that is. You need to give him enough so he doesn't stray, but not too much otherwise he gets clingy, and that never ends well for anybody." Gwen shuddered at the thought.

"Which one was Liam?" The question caught her off guard. Courtney rolled onto her stomach, resting folding her arms across the armrest and resting her chin atop of them. She stared at Gwen for a moment while the shock died down. "You were calling his name in the car, when you were asleep. Did you dream about him?"

"I um...Yeah. Yeah, I dreamed about him." Gwen pushed her food away too. Though she was famished, she suddenly felt nauseated all over again. "And neither. Liam...Liam was my brother."

Neither girls had mentioned their family at all since they met. They both understood it was a sensitive subject, and while they didn't know each others stories, they figured they were both orphans for the same reason.


	4. Where It Might Get Better

**Chapter Three**

**Where It Might Get Better**

Liam was not mentioned again, and neither was Duncan. That moment had passed, and together, Courtney and Gwen decided to put it behind them. Once the sun had come up, the two of them had left that house and Courtney had hot wired a second car with a tank full of gas.

It was a constant cycle of driving all day and hiding out after dark. It was only when they were ten days into their partnership did things start to go awry. They had driven out of one city and started heading towards the next, but it was a lot longer than anticipated. The highway was absent of human life, but was covered in abandoned cars. They took turns driving between them, trying their best to worm through the pack. It was harder than it looked, and when they finally got away, their smart car broke down. It was the worst ending to the worst day they had been having.

Neither of them were very knowledgeable about cars, and when they popped the hood up, they each turned to the other looking just as confused.

Gwen walked away, starting to walk down the highway instead. Courtney lead out a loud shriek, slamming the car hood closed, more than likely doing a lot more damage- though it didn't really matter at that point. The brunette angrily grabbed her belongings from the backseat and started trailing after Gwen.

They gave each other distance for the first hour, giving Courtney time to cool off. Gwen had quickly learnt her partner had a bad temper when things didn't go her way, and had already worked out that she should be avoided at all costs when not in a good mood.

When they stopped for a break, Courtney caught up, happily sipping down a large gulp of water. It was usually rationed more evenly, a system she herself had come up with to conserve what little supplies they had, but they were in the middle of an unforeseeable problem, one where all plans went out the window.

Gwen twitched nervously under the heated sun. Summer should have been coming to a close in Canada soon, though there was no real way of telling without a working calendar system anymore. Courtney turned her attention to her friend- because they had decided they must be some sort of friends by now- noticing how her hand was casually rested on top of the pistol she kept in her lower leg pocket of her camo pants. She hadn't used it since that one time, but Courtney could tell by the way that Gwen had picked up the nervous habit of biting her nails that just that one time had affected her deeply.

They started up again after ten minutes, continuing their idle walk. Soon after, Courtney's stomach started to rumble from hunger, and Gwen chuckled to stop her own hunger pains from getting the better of her. The brunette groaned, wishing she'd saved her last breakfast bar for that moment.

It took another two hours, but just as the sun was preparing to set, Courtney spotted a town appearing in the distance. They were still a while away, so they quickened their pace. Halfway there they had to turned to flashlight, which worried them greatly, but there was no other way about it. Coming into the town they found the floor littered with broken glass and throw-away needles. The last thing they needed was one of them to stand on something and sustain an injury, let alone sustain a foot injury. Without the ability to walk, they couldn't get anywhere.

Courtney wanted to find a decent house to spend the night in, but Gwen tugged her into the first one she saw. They needed cover.

The older girl set to drawing the drapes while the younger raided the kitchen. Courtney found her happy place. The kitchen was almost fully stocked, as if someone had been preparing to hide and wait out the storm, but got swept up in it against their will. She pulled open a freezer draw and the first thing she saw was a loaf of bread. Courtney could feel tears tickling the corners of her eyes. It had been so long since she had had a decent sandwich, it was all she could think of in that moment.

Once Gwen was sure the house was locked up tighter than Fort Knox, she met her friend in the kitchen. Courtney had pulled open every drawer and cupboard, and raided every shelf she could find. The kitchen was a jungle of food-mostly not in date-and Courtney was at the heart in it. She had pulled out two piece of defrosted bread and placed them on the counter. Reaching for the butter, she spread a thin layer on each slice, careful not to catch any of the growing mold, chewing on her lips to stop the drool. Usually, the brunette would have gone straight for the lettuce and then the ham, but both were long past their expiration dates, so she settled for six thick slices of cheese covered in half a tin of tuna. Courtney slammed the top piece of bread on top so fast it rattled the counter. Gwen watched from the kitchen door, fighting back a smile as Courtney sunk her teeth into her creation. She was practically inhaling it instead of savoring, but Gwen couldn't blame her. She had soon made her own way over to Courtney and was making her own sandwich, and it was the best sandwich she had ever eaten.

Both girls were bloated as they laid in bed, rubbing their full stomachs and muttering about the pain. They couldn't eat very much because they had gone so long without proper food, but they had stuffed as much food into their open and waiting mouths as possible because they got nauseous.

"I never want to eat again," Gwen complained, letting a loud belch out. Courtney pulled a face, but couldn't help but agree.

They both drifted to sleep quite easily, not even bothering to unpack the sleeping bags. They passed out side by side on the pullout sofa bed, Gwen's hand resting on Courtney's leg and Courtney's arm stretched out beneath both of their heads.

The following morning, when Courtney woke up, her head tucked beneath Gwen's chin, she couldn't help but feel rested. It had been a long time since she had slept through the whole night. They had both fallen asleep before they could decide who should stay up and take first watch, but the house appeared undisturbed.

The brunette stretched, edging her way along the bed, not wanting to wake up Gwen. She looked like she was finally having a peaceful sleep instead of the nightmares that had continued to plague her. Though she never talked about it, Courtney knew they were about her brother and Duncan. Gwen would often call out for one of them, and Courtney felt useless watching her do so. It was nice to see her companion sleeping contentedly.

The curtains were still drawn, but a sliver of sunlight had made its way below and was spanning across the floor. It felt warm under Courtney's cold toes and she sighed happily. This was definitely the best house they had come across so far, but no matter how badly she wished she could stay in it, Gwen would no doubt drag them out for the day. She still had her mind set on the island of Newfoundland, and Courtney had given up trying to convince her otherwise.

Courtney strolled into the kitchen and made another sandwich, and it was still the best tasting sandwich she had ever had. She ate it as she explored the rest of the house.

Upstairs were three bedrooms: one master bedroom and two children's rooms. It was hard to look in the children's rooms, because this house had no doubt been one of the infected ones. It was a horrid thing to think of and it only brought back unwanted memories for Courtney.

She shut the doors to the unwanted bedrooms and entered the master bedroom. It was considerably small, but the house itself wasn't very big. Courtney subconsciously turned the family photos on the nightstand away, not daring to remind herself of happier times, even if they weren't her own. It was times like this when she missed her parents and her friends, and the way her life used to be. Being in a family home-a small and cozy family home-she felt the gaping hole inside her chest. Everything that had once been there had been ripped out as Courtney's had been thrown into this zombie filled void.

Distantly, Courtney could hear a low grumbling. She held her breath, but it wasn't zombie noises, nor was it anything from inside the house. Courtney wasn't sure, but it sounded a lot like a car engine. She dived over to the window, carefully peaking through the gap in the closed drapes. She couldn't see anything, but the rumbling was getting louder.

Courtney rushed back down the staircase, yelling, "Gwen! Gwen!" The other teenager girl mumbled something incoherently. "I think there's someone coming!"

"What?" Gwen asked, slightly more alert.

"I think there's people outside in a car!" Courtney squealed. She didn't know to be excited or scared, but this could very well have been the rescue they had been waiting for. "Come on, get up!" The brunette licked her hand and smoothed down some of Gwen's unruly hair in a motherly way before she got shooed away.

Courtney didn't dare open the door without Gwen, just in case it was some sort of trap. Courtney was a strong fighter, even more so with her baseball bat, but she knew that their fighting force was at its greatest together, especially with Gwen's handgun. But the way she was bouncing up and down, basically vibrating on the spot, she didn't appear to be anymore than an excited child.

Gwen finished pulling on her combat boots and met Courtney at the front door. Taking a peek through the peep hole, she couldn't see any immediate danger. She grabbed the handgun from her pocket before unlocking the door, just as a precaution. Courtney gripped her trusty baseball bat tighter, raising it above her head, ready to swing. Slowly, Gwen pulled the front door open, peeking through the gap. Sure enough, coming down the street at a casual five miles an hour was a black land rover. The sun was reflecting off its surface, obviously it had been recently cleaned, and all the windows were tinted black. Gwen gripped the gun with both hands, just in case. They couldn't see who was inside the car, or if they were going to be friendly or not, all either of the girls could do was pray that the zombies hadn't learnt how to drive yet.

The land rover came to a halt two houses down, in the middle of the street. Courtney stayed close to Gwen as she walked out to the sidewalk, ready to greet whoever was there. The passenger door popped open and out came a young man, hands in the air. He was a little older than Gwen, maybe approaching twenty-one, but he had a boyish grin on his face. He wore a black tank top and black camo pants, with a pair of designer Ray-Bans perched on his nose, shielding his eyes from the morning glare. His skin tone matched Courtney's almost perfectly, and when he stepped a bit closer Gwen noticed the bull skull necklace around his neck.

"I mean you no harm." Gwen figured it was a better sentence than 'we come in peace'. Courtney lowered her bat in an instant. Not because she believed him, but because his voice melted through the air and hit her hard. He had a thick Spanish accent, something she had always wished she'd inherited from her mother, but never had. It made her muscles relax and her brain forget what panicking was.

Gwen nudged her foot against Courtney's, fighting her starstruck look. They both looked at each other for a split second before turning back to the stranger. Gwen kept a tight grip on her gun, but didn't raise it. He didn't seem to be a threat, but she was overly cautious.

"My name is Alejandro," the stranger continued on when neither of the girls replied to him. Gwen could see his eyes lingering on Courtney, staring directly at the patchy birthmark on her right forearm."I am from a survivor camp in the next town over. I'm out here looking for other survivors."

"We're fine on our own," Gwen shot back, her eyes slits on her face. She noticed the tone of voice he was using, the one her father had always used on her mother back before he left. It was the 'I- want-something' voice, as Gwen came to know it. Her father was always trying to weasel his way back into the family, and though a strong woman, Gwen's mother could never say no to him. Gwen knew from experience that people who used this tone were not trustworthy people.

"Please, come with me for an hour," he said. "Just to make sure you're fed and well. No injuries. I'd hate to see two beautiful chicas like yourselves be in any discomfort."

Courtney was about to agree, but Gwen cut across, "We're perfectly fine."

"You don't appear to be a doctor, hermosa," Alejandro told her. "You could have some internal injuries you do not know about. Please, come with me, for my own well-being. I don't know what I would do if I left two woman out in the desert like this."

The younger girl turned to Courtney with a pleading look on her face. Gwen knew that Courtney wanted nothing more than to be safe, and if there were a colony of survivors, this could really be her chance.

"Gwen, please..." The brunette whispered. "We can just get checked over, and have a hot meal, and then we can go straight back to travelling to Newfoundland."

Gwen sighed, knowing that Courtney was in the right. Though she didn't trust Alejandro, getting a medical check and an actual meal should have been more of a priority to her.

They both turned back to Alejandro and the land rover, and Gwen said, "Let us grab our things."


	5. Where It Doesn't Get Better

**Happy Holidays!**

* * *

**Chapter Four**

**Where It Doesn't Get Better**

The driver, whose name was never mentioned, took the two girls, plus Alejandro, straight back to the survivors base. It wasn't a particularly long drive, but to Gwen, whose stomach wouldn't stop knotting around itself, it felt like another five months of fear. She didn't throw her trust around very easily, she was always cautious, and there was just something about Alejandro that didn't fit into place. Courtney, however, seemed smitten with him. She spoke to him with ease about what had happened over the past few months, opening up more to him than she ever had with Gwen. He sat in the passenger seat while Gwen and Courtney were sat in the back. Their eyes were meeting through the rear view mirror, and now he had removed his sunglasses, Courtney was acting even more like a love struck teenager than before. His eyes were a vibrant green, slippery like an eel. Every time his gaze landed on Gwen, she stared him out with a frown on her face, and he put his attention back on Courtney.

The base wasn't quite what the girls had imagined. Gwen had been expecting a rundown supermarket with a couple of pop-up beds with maybe a trained nurse and some large men to stand guard at the door. This was something else entirely.

The building was square in shape, standing at six floors tall and made entirely of red brick. It had once been a hospital, only known by the signs that pointed in directions towards ER and reception. It was falling apart, like every other building in Canada.

The land rover pulled up outside the ambulance bay and Alejandro jumped out, opening up the back door for Courtney to get out too. Gwen opened her own door, not caring for his chivalry. The three of them walked up the building while the driver sped off. Alejandro typed in a security code at the door and then held it open for the pair of them to go through. Once inside, they were greeted by a large man who instructed them to drop all weapons into a plastic grey tray, like airport security.

Gwen refused to hand over her gun, but Alejandro told her she would get it back when she left and not allowing weapons into the building. Reluctantly, she handed it over. Courtney handed over her baseball bat too, and a quick check of their backpacks was done before they were stored away as well. Gwen was starting to doubt herself for coming with Alejandro, but one look at Courtney and she knew she made the right decision. She hated seeing her friend hungry and cold, in desperate need of a long, hot bath, but not being able to have one. Gwen didn't really care for herself, but there was something about travelling with someone else that had boosted her empathy and sympathy levels.

After the security check, they were led into a room off to the side and greeted by a large group of young females, all dressed similarly to Alejandro in plain black clothing. No one looked older than their mid-twenties, but that didn't comfort Gwen. She had never been good with people her own age and would much rather this be an old folks home than a nightclub.

"These ladies will take good care of you," Alejandro told Courtney and Gwen. "I'll be back in an hour to give you a tour of the place." Courtney gave him a smile of thanks, while Gwen searched the room for any familiar faces. No one stood out to her.

A tall woman stepped forward. She didn't look like the oldest, but she was definitely the one in charge. Her features were Asian, with bitter grey eyes and long, dark hair that reached her waist, kept out of her face with a simple red band tying it behind her neck. She didn't introduce herself, just gave both girls a once over before turning back to the huddle of other females.

"Take them through to be showered," was all she said before leaving the room in the same direction as Alejandro had.

Gwen's frown deepened, not liking the way things were around here already.

The other women quickly disbanded, most heading off through a side door while two stayed behind. One grabbed Courtney by the hand with a happy smile on her face, Courtney looked at Gwen as she was tugged away. Gwen wanted to protest, but the other young girl, the one that Gwen guessed was here to take her for a shower, spoke up, "Don't worry, she's just gonna get cleaned up." She nodded her head towards another door in the back of the room. "Come on, you smell, too." Gwen raised an eyebrow at her brashness, though it had been said in a joking way. A small smile played on her lips as she followed the other girl through the door.

They were around the same age, but that was where the similarities stopped. Gwen's hair was shorter after she'd hacked it off with a butter knife not long after she'd set off towards Newfoundland island because it was getting in her way, and it was in desperate need of dying again. Her natural dark brown coloring had definitely taken over, though her tips were still in black and teal stripes. This other girl had bright red hair, and not the natural kind. She must have dyed it recently because there was no indication as to what her natural color was. She was taller than Gwen too, though Gwen was considerably short for her age. She was also a lot friendlier and happier.

The red haired girl had led her into a rather large bathroom. It was fully furnished with a toilet, bathtub, shower cubicle and sink. There were shelves upon shelves of different products-though they all looked to be labelled as medical-and towels. Along the wall to the right there was a long mirror and beneath it, in the corner beside the door, was a white leather sofa, where the girl had placed herself. She gestured to the facilities, obvious that she wasn't going going to leave while Gwen was there.

Gwen walked over to the towel shelf and grabbed a few. They weren't the best quality, but she wasn't expecting them to be since they were hospital towels. She walked over the shower cubicle and dropped the towels to the floor. She looked back over to the girl who was entranced with a cell phone she held close to her face, tapping away furiously on it. Gwen hadn't seen a cell phone in a very long time, and wondered if the girl could still get reception or was just playing games.

Gwen slipped into the cubicle and pulled the curtain around her before pulling off her clothes. She hadn't changed them in five days, which was when she used up her last clean outfit. While running from a few zombies, she and Courtney had ended up slipping down a muddy embankment and had ending up stinking. They'd found the nearest house and washed off their skin in the sink, not daring to have a shower, and changed into the one pair of spare clothes they had each.

She tossed her clothes onto the floor by the towels and starting fiddling with some dials on the box on the wall until she found the on switch and the the right temperature for her. She couldn't remember the last time she had showered or washed her hair. She'd forgotten how good it felt.

"I'll get you some clean clothes and...burn these," the other girl said from right outside the curtain. Gwen jumped slightly, but gave a meek 'okay'. She was too busy enjoying the hot water to care. She heard the door shut and teen minutes later it opened again. "I'm Zoey," said the girl and Gwen could see her silhouette placing what must have been the clothes down on the floor.

"Gwen."

"Nice to meet you, Gwen," Zoey spoke with a smile. Gwen couldn't see her, but she was too cheery to not be smiling. "Where did Al pick you up to?"

"I uh...I don't know exactly," she replied honestly. "Not too far from here. The next town over, I guess."

"Me too." Zoey had moved back to the sofa and Gwen could hear the tapping of the phone. "Me and my boyfriend ended up there after we were chased by the infected. Al and Heather showed up, shot the infected and saved us. That was three months ago, and Mike and I have been here ever since."

Gwen switched off the shower before she had to share her own story with Zoey. There wasn't much she wanted to tell, and she did consider the possibility that she could have been a spy.

"Who's Heather?" Gwen asked, patting herself down with a towel.

"The one you just met," Zoey replied. "The bossy one." Gwen remembered her well, the bitch that she was, commanding the others to wash down Courtney and Gwen.

Courtney. She had escaped Gwen's mind for a while when she was cleansing, but now she couldn't shake the worrying thought that Courtney was not okay. She was more vulnerable that Gwen, or at least that was the way Gwen saw it. Like a child that needed protecting from the nightmares.

"Heather was one of the first survivors here." Zoey was still talking. "She and Alejandro pretty much built this place to what it is, so they're kind of like the leaders. They boss everyone around like they own the place, though...so, just be careful to not get on their bad sides."

"Don't worry," Gwen huffed, struggling into the new clothes she's been given. There were black camo pants like her old ones, only they were in a much better condition with no holes or mud marks. The tank top was a little too tight fitted for her liking, but she couldn't exactly complain. These people were giving her free clean clothes, something she had learnt to be grateful for. "We'll be out of here before sunset."

"Ha!" Zoey exclaimed loudly as Gwen pushed back the shower cubicle curtain. The red-haired girl was sat back on the leather sofa, cellphone held tightly in a one-handed grip while the other arm was stretched behind her head. "Good luck with that one."

"W-What?"

"No one leaves here," Zoey says, though she doesn't seem very bothered about the fact.

"But Alejandro said-"

"And you believed him?" Their eyes met across the room and Gwen suddenly knew that this girl was more trustworthy than Alejandro was. She was sweet and innocent, just another lost soul caught up in the storm of the infection. "Since you're going to be here a while, here's some advice; don't trust anything Alejandro says. Heather will tell you straight up what she thinks of you, but Al...Al twists things to fit his way. Heather's a bitch, Alejandro's manipulative." Gwen stared at her puzzlingly. "You'll understand soon enough."

"I'm not staying here," Gwen said, though not exactly to Zoey. She was still trying to convince herself this had been a good idea. "Me and Courtney are leaving as soon as possible."

* * *

Courtney hadn't felt this clean since before she had gone on the run. It was never safe in the houses she had stayed at in her hometown, and the school didn't have a shower for her to use, so it was minute-long scrub downs in the bathroom sink. Now she was fully showered and wearing brand new clothes. Her hair was no longer thick and greasy, it was neatly combed and pulled back into a low ponytail. One of the girls had filed her nails so they weren't jagged anymore, though she wasn't a very talkative person. There was definitely an obstruction between Courtney and the other young women that lived in the survivor base, but all Courtney hoped was that Gwen was feeling better about herself too.

Speaking of her friend, they hadn't seen each other in two hours. They'd been pulled into two different rooms and in Courtney's she had been cleaned up. There was a nervous feeling in the pit of her stomach that Gwen wasn't being treated the same way she was, but it was easily knocked away when she saw Alejandro's smiling face coming down the hallway.

"Afternoon, chica," he greeted warmly. "I almost didn't recognize you now that you look so much prettier without all the dirt on your face." He ran a sly finger over her cheek, brushing away a stray strand. "How was everything?"

"Great," Courtney beamed. The way he looked at her made her want to do nothing more than smile for the rest of eternity just because he had given her the time of day, let alone actually touched her face. "I've been completely pampered."

"That's what I like to hear." He held his arm out to her. "May I escort you to the dining hall for lunch?"

Courtney bit her lip to stop herself from giggling. She nodded her head and took Alejandro's arm, allowing him to walk her in the direction of the dining hall. All thoughts of what was going on around her had left her head and all she could focus on was this touch on her skin. Maybe it was because she had gone so long without human contact, or because her heart was still broken over Duncan, all Courtney knew was her troubles melted away when Alejandro was near her.

They entered the dining hall and Courtney was overwhelmed by how many people were sitting around, eating and chatting, almost like it was lunch time at school. She couldn't tell exactly how many people were in there, but there were at least sixty, all ranging from middle-aged right through to young children around five or six.

Alejandro directed Courtney towards the food section where there was one long station covered in piping hot food with the steam roaming upwards, blocking the clean air with that of many different smells. Courtney's stomach rumbled and she was practically drooling.

"Courtney!" She turned at the sound of her voice. Gwen was waving her over from a table on the far side of the room. Courtney waved back and Alejandro lowered his lips to her ear, "Go on, I'll bring some food over for both of us." She gave him another thankful smile and a lingering stare as she walked away. The closer she got to Gwen the faster her pace became. She noticed her friend was not alone but with a girl with bright red hair. Her focus was on a small, out-dated cellphone while Gwen was biting her lip in worry. Courtney sat down across from the pair of them. "Why are you here with him?"

"What?" It wasn't the first thing she had expected Gwen to say. "You mean Alejandro? He escorted me here." Gwen's eyes narrowed down, not impressed with the answer. "Why, what's wrong?"

"Don't trust him, Court," she replied bitterly. The brunette raised an eyebrow. Was she really going to play this game? Even though Gwen looked a lot cleaner, her attitude was still raw with hatred. Hatred for anyone she didn't deem trustworthy, just like she hadn't deemed Courtney trustworthy when they had first met. That was Gwen's problem; she never gave anyone a chance. At least, that was Courtney's opinion of her.

"Alejandro has been nothing but kind since he found us," Courtney argued, careful not to raise her voice in case of eavesdroppers. Zoey snorted. Courtney glared at the other girl. "Something you want to say?"

But before Zoey could tell Courtney anything, Alejandro took position in the seat beside Courtney, handing her a plate of mashed potatoes and sausages covered in gravy. Back in the normal world, Courtney wouldn't have looked twice at this kind of meal, but in this one she was practically inhaling it.

"You ladies don't mind if I join you?" He asked politely, looking at each of them around the table.

"Where's Heather today?" Zoey asked, knowing that he usually sat with her and the higher ups during meal times.

"Heather and Scott are working in the lab," he replied honestly. Zoey's face glossed over for a second and both girls caught it before she could turn her attention back down to the cell phone. "How is he today?"

Zoey shrugged, her shoulders hitting her low pigtails. "Same as always."

Courtney and Gwen shot each other a look across the table, neither knowing what they were talking about. It sounded like a personal conversation and it was obviously upsetting Zoey, who was back to tapping away at the keyboard. Alejandro was digging into his mash potatoes, but his eyes remained on the girl across the table.

"So, Al," Gwen spoke through the tension. "What exactly do you do around here?"

The Latino's face changed, almost as if his potatoes had suddenly gone sour. He cleared his throat. "Alejandro. Never Al," he told her resentfully. "And I guess I do a bit of everything around here." He turned his attention fully to Gwen. "I mostly just check everything and everyone runs smoothly and fix any problems that arise."

They four of them sat in silence for a while. Alejandro and Courtney picked at their food while Zoey never let her eyes wander from her phone again. Gwen had her attention on her nails, chewing and biting them after they had been filed. Her eyes would carefully shoot to Alejandro sometimes and other times they would watch Courtney instead. She knew she had to warn her friend before something bad happened to her. Over the almost two weeks they had spent together, Gwen had formed a caring side for Courtney. Though she never would have thought is possible, she really didn't want Courtney to get hurt by anything- zombies or otherwise.

By the time the plates had been scraped clean of every bite, Gwen had bitten every nail down to the nub. Courtney was looking full and satisfied.

"I guess we'll be making our leave," Gwen said, getting up from her seat. "Wouldn't want to over stay our welcome." She tried to plaster on a happy smile, but it was tight and forced.

"Oh no," Alejandro said, licking his lips. "I insist you stay, have a proper nights rest before you head out on your travels again."

"We couldn't-" Gwen tried to say, but Courtney decided to cut across.

"One night wouldn't hurt," the younger girl told her, her big eyes pleading. Gwen stared her down, but it was no use. She sighed, sitting herself back down. This was going to be a long stay.


	6. Where It Gets Serious

**Chapter Five**

**Where It Gets Serious**

The dormitory was dark, too dark. Gwen kept tossing and turning, scaring herself with what she believed to be the outlined shadow of an infected. There was quiet beeping coming from down the hall, and Gwen insisted on telling herself that was what was keeping her awake, not her over active imagination wondering what was going on with Courtney. They had been taken to separate rooms instead of the same one, and though she knew she was only down the hall, she couldn't help but wonder if she was in some sort of danger.

Gwen sat up in bed, smoothing down her hair. Her arm was sore from where the nurse had stuck a needle in without her permission. She said it was some antibacterial thing, but Gwen was not convinced. She didn't trust any of these people- well, except maybe Zoey. Zoey was more of a go-with-the-flow kind of person, and Gwen knew she wouldn't have stayed in this place without a good reason. Though she never said anything, Gwen knew the good reason was whoever she kept texting on her phone. She was the only person with a cell phone, which struck Gwen was odd. Alejandro never said anything about it, so she assumed he had issued it. No one else had a cell phone, as far as she had seen.

Zoey's light snoring could be heard from the bed next to Gwen's. There were four beds in total as this had once been a hospital room on one of the west wards. Patients with various diseases had slept in these beds, and Gwen just prayed she wasn't going to catch something from spending so much time in the hospital.

The other two beds were occupied by other young girls that Gwen didn't know. Very few people were friendly in the base, which did make Gwen extra suspicious about things. But, to everyone else, she must have come across as unfriendly too. Trust was a hard thing to come by in this new world.

She had the bed closest to the window, so when she rolled over and sat up, she had the perfect view of the front of the hospital. She could see a few men out the there with large guns. She couldn't make out individual people, but it their silver guns that glinted under the full moon made it kind of obvious.

By the time Gwen got comfortable in the bed, the sun was starting to come in through the Venetian blinds. The teenager was not happy with not getting any sleep, but she knew she would always be able to sleep the following night when she wasn't in the hospital anymore.

The more she thought about leaving the more Zoey's words would play in her mind.

_'No one leaves here.'_

It didn't sound very promising, and it was definitely not an option for Gwen and Courtney to stay at the survivor base. They had a plan to get to Newfoundland island and Gwen was going to stick to that plan even if it killed her. There was no way she was going to wait around at the hospital with Alejandro the manipulative, just waiting for a run in with Heather the bitch.

"You awake?" Zoey called. Gwen twisted her head to the side to see the redhead looking at her. The other two girls were already up and moving, getting dressed for their day. Zoey stretched out in bed a bit before swinging her legs over the side. It was the first time Gwen had seen her without her cellphone attached to her hand.

She watched Zoey for a moment, noticing the sadness on her face, before rolling out of bed herself. There was a fresh set of black clothes on the nightstand that she had been given last night. She hastily changed and followed Zoey out of the room. Courtney was waiting for her at the end of the hallway. The brunette had a wide grin on her face when she spotted Gwen, giving her a quick one-armed hug before the three teenagers made their descent down the staircase.

Gwen was in a little shock because she and Courtney had never hugged before- they'd actually barely touched before. But there was something about the small gesture that warmed Gwen's heart. Last night was the longest they had spent apart since before they had met. It felt strange to Gwen to not have to constantly worry about not only herself, but another person too. Though, she was still worrying...

"Where's your cell, Zo?" Courtney asked when they reached the cafeteria.

"Al took it," she replied somberly. Gwen had quickly learnt that everyone called him Al behind his back, but never to his face. He really hated the nickname, but never opened up about why. "Said something about checking it over." Zoey shrugged like it was no big deal, but if Alejandro had taken Gwen's cell phone she would have killed him. Gwen knew he was going to go through her personal text messages, whoever they were to. Zoey seemed more upset about the fact that she couldn't text the person than that Alejandro had taken the phone from her.

The three of them grabbed a plastic tray and a bottle of orange juice, heading down the line towards the hot cooked food. Courtney was starting to drool as she scooped two slices of bacon onto her plate followed by two sausages and two eggs. Gwen watched with a smile on her face, glad to see that Courtney had an appetite. She grabbed a bowl of oatmeal instead of the full breakfast and followed Zoey over to the same table they had been sat at yesterday for both lunch and dinner.

Zoey's face was downcast for most of her meal. Courtney and Gwen sat in silence, chowing down on their own breakfast. No one noticed the three people approaching.

"Do you mind if I sit here?" Zoey's eyebrows furrowed and her attention turned to the male teenager that was standing behind the plastic chair beside Courtney, but when their eyes met all of the sadness and hurt left her expression.

"Mike," she gasped, rushing to her feet. She threw her arms around his neck, reaching on her tiptoes to press a fierce kiss against his lips. He kissed her back, but didn't move to hold her. Gwen noticed the military handcuffs that were set tightly around his wrists.

Mike was about six foot tall with the body of a twig. He wore a ripped blue t-shirt and dark washed jeans. He stood out against everyone else with their black camo pants and black tank tops, but he didn't seem to care. Everyone else in the cafeteria was staring at the young couple as they continued to kiss, whispering words to each other in a not so secret fashion.

Zoey moved away for a second, allowing Mike to shift his body. She slipped under his looped arms and hugged him closer than before. Mike was smiling as he held his girlfriend, as if he'd never thought he'd be able to do it again, but finally was- judging by the handcuffs, Gwen guessed that was the actual case.

"Don't cry, Zo," he guffawed, removing his face from her neck to give her a peck on the nose. Zoey wiped at her eyes, something Mike wished he could have done without the shackles on his wrists hurting her. They were both smiling widely at each other.

Heather cleared her throat and Mike flashed her a grin too. The Asian girl rolled her eyes and directed the other teenage boy beside her-the one with the natural orange hair that that couldn't stop staring at Courtney-to get the three of them food. He nodded his head absent mindedly and turned away, not moving his eyes off Courtney until he stumbled into a chair. She rolled her eyes at him, but Gwen was sure she saw a small blush when she turned back to her food.

Mike took the seat beside Courtney, and Zoey sat on his lap, her arms still draped loosely around his neck. Heather dragged up a fifth chair and placed it at the head of the table next to Mike, sitting herself down.

What caught Gwen's eyes was the end of a blood soaked bandage peeking out from under Mike's shirt sleeve. No one else seemed to notice, so she didn't say anything.

Zoey wiped her eyes once again. "Guys, this is my boyfriend Mike," she said with a wide smile.

"I'd be kind of worried if he wasn't your boyfriend," Gwen joked, referring to the kissing and teary reunion, and Zoey smiled wider.

"Mike, this is Gwen and Courtney." She pointed to each of them as she said their names. "They arrived here yesterday," Zoey explained to her boyfriend, who took in every word she said with a look of admiration.

The other teenage boy arrived back at the table with a tray of three plates and took Zoey's empty seat. Not long after the food had been distributed, Alejandro had dragged a sixth chair up the table, on the opposite end to Heather. He had a wide grin on his face as he watched Zoey and Mike interacting. Gwen eyed him suspiciously.

"So, Mike," Gwen started, sucking her breakfast spoon clean. "What's with the cuffs?"

Not just the table, but the whole room fell to silence, and Courtney shot Gwen a look of puzzlement. Something strange was going on at the base, that was for sure. Lists of conspiracy theories danced in Gwen's head, but none of them seem quite right.

Mike coughed into his shoulder, "Umm..." He mumbled. "I-Uh...I..." But he couldn't quite form the words. He was obviously not used to explaining his situation to other people.

Gwen raised her eyebrow at him, but Alejandro saved Mike from further embarrassment.

"Mike...has a problem," the Spaniard explained. Heather snorted behind her coffee mug, downing the last of the drink.

"What kind of problem?" Gwen asked.

"Yeah, Al, this should be good," Heather smirked, turning to look at him. His eyes narrowed down when she said his name, but he didn't scold her for it like he had Gwen, giving said girl the impression that there was something between them.

"Scott can probably tell you better than I can," Alejandro said, turning to the orange haired boy. All eyes turned to him and he started to shake from all the attention.

"He...he's infected."

The silence that had once filled the room was now replaced by a new break-out of whispers that tsunamied their way across the whole cafeteria. "And this is why we don't speak of it," Alejandro mumbled.

"You don't look infected," Courtney said, turning to face Mike, but it wasn't a look of shock or disbelief, or even one that suspected them of lying about his infection. Courtney looked at Mike as if she wanted to know more.

Zoey had her face nestled into Mike's neck, her hands trembling and her eyes starting to flood again. Gwen suddenly felt the need to want to comfort her, almost as if it was Courtney crying.

"It's...it's confusing," Mike explained to the two newbies. "I was bitten as we were being saved from the town, but they brought me here anyway and...well, I didn't really turn the normal way." Gwen noted he was rubbing his thumbs, which she guessed was a substitute for rubbing his neck nervously, which he couldn't do. "Sometimes I'm, you know, normal...and other times...I-I'm not...so normal."

"Jekyll and Hyde," Courtney mumbled to herself before turning her attention back to Mike. "...That's a thing?" Mike just shrugged. Gwen caught Heather smirking at Alejandro, who was still shooting daggers her way. Scott was still drooling over Courtney and Courtney was trying to process what she had just heard. Gwen was too busy gouging everyone else's reactions to know how she felt about it herself. "Is there a way other people could be like that?" The brunette continued talking. "And can it be cured if there is?"

No one said anything, and the uneasy silence proved to Gwen what she thought she had already known. "What is it?" Courtney frowned at Scott, who had finally turned his attention away. "What are you not telling us?"

"Umm...Courtney," Alejandro said, ignoring Gwen's question. "Why don't you come down to the lab with us and we can explain it to you, since you seem to be having a hard time processing this?" Courtney was not having a hard time processing anything, and Gwen could smell the plot beginning to thicken.

Courtney nodded her head, not meeting anyone's eye until Gwen added, "I'll come too." The brunette nodded her head again. She usually wasn't this quiet and Gwen could tell by the way she wasn't babbling on about something that this Mike thing was affecting her more than it should have. "And after that we can make our leave." Alejandro looked nervous, but nodded his head and everyone got up from the table.

The group of seven left the cafeteria, all eyes on them. It was bad enough being the newbies in the base, but now they also had the freak show experiment along for the ride.

It was a long walk to the lab. Alejandro and Heather took the lead, muttering to each other quietly, and what seemed to be angrily, too. Mike held his arms awkwardly to one side so that he could hold hands with Zoey. Scott was still staring at Courtney, which she returned with pointed glares of hatred. Gwen trailed behind the rest of them, over thinking her situation.

The lab was located in the basement where there had once been a quarantine bay. It consisted of a white room with two hospital beds hidden behind a shatter-proof half glass wall. On the far end of the glass wall was a heavy metal door with bolts and a security pad while against the wall, beneath the glass, were several desks and chairs. The rest of the lab was also made of desks and chairs, with a few laptops and computers. Hanging around were a couple of geeky looking guys, their eyes glued to computer screens as they tapped away on the keyboards. In one of the chairs beneath the window was an older blonde woman. She looked around her older mid-twenties, and was probably the oldest person Gwen had seen at the facility. She was playing Snake on an ancient Nokia, but quickly turned the power off when she saw the group arrive. There was a small smirk on her face and she was also staring directly at Courtney- as if Scott doing it wasn't creepy enough.

The group walked over to the far end of the room where Heather punched the code into the keypad to unlock the door while Scott took the cuffs from Mike. As soon as they were off the zombie boy threw his arms around his girlfriend. Zoey started sobbing into his chest again as he stroked her hair soothingly.

Gwen bit her lip as she watched them. Falling in love in this messed up world didn't seem like a very good idea. Forming bonds and friendships didn't seem like a good idea. She turned her attention to Courtney who couldn't bring herself to watch the scene. Gwen's heart pounded in her chest, suddenly worrying for Courtney's safety all over again. She had grown so attached to the young girl over the past two weeks, she didn't know what she would do without her anymore. Maybe she was way in over her head with this partnership they had.

"I love you," Mike mumbled.

"I love you too," Zoey choked. They gave each other one last peck on the lips before Mike led himself into his prison. Heather handed him a cell phone and he promised Zoey that he would text her before the door locked behind him.

Zoey wiped her eyes dry as Heather handed her her own cell phone back. The red haired girl made her way back over to the other side of the room, taking a seat beside the blonde that had been there when they had entered.

"Courtney, Gwen, this is Blainely," Alejandro introduced. Blainely gave them a sly smile, her eyes still watching Courtney carefully. Scott and Heather had taken seats on the other side of the room, but Gwen could still feel the rednecks eyes on her friend. "Blainely is one of the leaders in trying to find a cure for not just Mike, but the infected as a whole." He sighed, taking a seat next to Blainely. "We haven't been...entirely honest with you since your arrival."

"You don't say," Gwen snapped, her pent-up anger slowly seeping through her cracks. Courtney placed her hand on Gwen's arm, but she didn't feel too much better.

"Blainely here used to work for the government," Alejandro continued, gesturing to Blainely.

"You look too young to work for the government," Courtney remarked.

"It's amazing where you can get with a pair of these," she replied, grabbing her breasts with a cheeky wink. Alejandro rolled his eyes as if he was used to her saying such things. Gwen and Courtney stared at her in disgust. "But as Alejandro was saying, I used to work for the government in the medical research department. About two decades ago, long before I was even working there, though, there was a similar infectious outbreak in Australia. Some scientist from across the globe, including Canadian scientists, worked on a cure for it, but never found one. Eventually, after a month or two, the disease went away by itself. However, the scientists insisted on working out a solution just in case it ever happened again. And it did."

Courtney collapsed into a chair next to Zoey and Gwen looked at her curiously. She wondered what was going on inside her head, as she was obviously not on the same train of thought as Gwen was.

Blainely continued on, "Almost six months ago, an outbreak was recorded near the research facility and it started to spread faster than what it took to contain it. But, the scientists were positive that this time they had a cure for it. Most of the scientists are dead or badly infected now. I got my hands on the file before I escaped and...and it turns out the cure was in the form of a child. She had been created specifically for the sake of her genes being able to cure the infection, and though it was never tested, the scientists are ninety-six percent positive it would work." Blainely's eyes looked between Courtney and Gwen, making sure they were following along so far. "The problem is, when I went to the address given of the child, the area had already been infected and she was no where to be found."

Scott tossed a brown folder onto the table between Blainely and Alejandro. The blonde woman opened it up and pulled out a photograph of a young child. She was about six years old, clearly Hispanic, dressed in a pink ballet outfit with a patchy birthmark on her right forearm.


	7. WILLIGB,BIJGW

**Chapter Six**

**Where It Looks Like It's Getting Better, But It Just Gets Worse**

Courtney was shaking, hunched over with her hands resting on her knees. She was struggling for breath, but not from running. Her mind was too over crowded with thoughts that she could barely remember how to breathe. She didn't know how long she had been leaning against the wall, all she knew was that the picture was no doubtedly her. After that she had told everyone she had needed some air and bolted from the room too fast to even hear everyone calling her name. She didn't care. It was too much for her to take in for her to care.

She was genetically created? Her parents must have forgotten to tell her that. She was the savior that could save mankind? It must have slipped their minds.

Courtney was vaguely aware of voices walking past, but no one gave her a second glance. They obviously hadn't had access to the information from the lab. Everyone else in the base thought she was just some weird newbie, not the cure to the disease that had forced them all into this hospital in the first place.

The cure.

It seemed like a stupid thing to think. It had been five long months of fearing the unknown and she had had the cure with her-in her-all along. This all seemed like some prolonged nightmare that was reaching the climax, the scariest part before the big finish. But Courtney couldn't see the end in sight and this cure nonsense didn't seem real enough.

"H-Hey." Courtney raised her head to see Scott-the annoying kid that wouldn't quit staring at her-standing awkwardly a few feet away. "How you feeling?"

"How am I feeling?" The brunette asked in disgust, as if it was the stupidest thing she had ever heard, but when Scott took a step back from her, her features lightened and she sighed. "I-I don't know...I don't know how to feel about this."

Scott didn't reply. He didn't seem to understand what it was like to have this much responsibility on his shoulders and how frightening it truly was for Courtney. Then again, no one could possibly understand what she was going through. No one else had the whole of humanity resting on their shoulders, or so how it felt to Courtney.

"I'll just..."

"No wait!" Courtney called out. "I don't...I don't want to be alone." Scott blinked at her a few times before she dropped to the floor, trying to get herself comfortable. The orange haired boy sat down next to her, but careful not to get too close. "This is just so serious, you know? I've always been such a strong person."

"Me too," Scott piped up, earning Courtney's attention. He didn't look very strong. "Strong as a rat, me." He lifted his arms, flexing his biceps, trying his best to show off.

"Don't you mean strong as a rat?"

"Nah, I was raised on a farm. Rats are nasty little critters, but they're strong. Strong enough to keep coming back for more of this." He flexed biceps again, which did earn a giggle from Courtney, before her face fell back into a serious way of things.

Courtney continued to talk about the matter at hand, "I mean, I've always been mature person, always doing things ahead of my age, but this...this isn't the same as reading a grade higher than I should. This isn't the same as organizing my parents work functions. This is me, just me, being able to possibly save the country, maybe even the world, of this disease. But what if it doesn't even work? Would I be stupid to not try in fear that it won't work and be branded as a failure? What are you staring at?"

"Oh," Scott coughed, turning his head away from Courtney as it lit up like a Christmas tree. "I was just...you know..." He mumbled incoherently. "I just...I like your eyes...both of them...on your face."

Courtney was taken a back by his sudden compliment and ducked her own head. "You're only saying that because I'm 'the cure'," she replied, using air quotations to boost her dramatics.

Scott shook his head, "I'm not infected." He shrugged his shoulders as if it was obvious. Courtney looked at him curiously. There weren't a lot of people in this base that were genuinely nice and trustworthy, and she wasn't sure if Scott was one of them or just someone Blainely had sent after her to make sure her precious cure wasn't going to runaway.

"You're...right," she said, slowly turning her head to face the floor. The clockwork of thoughts that moved around her head were going extra fast now, thinking up new theories. "I should talk to someone who is."

"Wait, that's not what-" But before Scott could convince Courtney she was crazy, she was gone. She was sprinting towards back to the lab where she had left everyone not that long before. Now there was only Alejandro and Blainely, and the geeky guys in the corner that had not moved at all.

She was panting again, which alerted Alejandro and Blainely to her arrival. They looked at her curiously, but Courtney didn't care for either of them in that moment.

"I need to talk to Mike," she told them. She nodded towards the metal door. "Let me in there." Alejandro looked panicked by the idea, but Courtney just rolled her eyes at him. "I'm hardly going to get infected."

Blainely looked to her colleague for a moment before reluctantly nodding her head. Alejandro got to his feet and walked to the far end of the room, Courtney following him at a leisurely pace, and pushing some buttons into the keypad. The bolted door unlocked and swung open two inches. Courtney pulled the door open and Alejandro locked it behind her. She could easily knock on the wide glass window when she was ready to come out.

Mike was stretched out on his side in the bed closest to the door, his back facing Courtney. She could hear his even breathing and figured he was taking a nap. There didn't seem to be much for him to do in this room other than sleep all day and text Zoey. It smelt oddly like blood, but Courtney had been around zombies long enough to know that Mike caused that smell when he turned. As she got closer to the bed she noticed that the curtains had massive rips in them and the walls were covered in nail scratches. She wondered what it must be like, knowing that you could turn into a monster like that at any moment.

Courtney took a seat on the edge of the second bed, peering down at Mike's face. He was definitely asleep, his eyelids fluttering as he dreamed away the pain. He still looked like himself in his sleep; innocent. He wasn't a monster in his 'human form', but Courtney knew all too well how easily that could change.

"Mike," she called softly. "Mike, wake up." She moved her hand to shake him gently, but before she could touch him his eye shot open, a groggy grey in color. Courtney pulled her arm back, prepared to scream, but after he'd blinked a few times Mike's eyes returned to their usual mellow brown color. "It's just me."

Mike blinked a few more times, sitting up and rubbing his eyes. He grabbed his phone to check the time before tapping out a quick message to Zoey, apologizing for falling asleep on her.

"So," Mike yawned, scratching the back of his head. "They told you about the cure, huh?" Courtney peered at him curiously and he shrugged. "The window isn't sound proof, you know."

"Oh..." Courtney mumbled. Mike gave Courtney a gap-toothed grin. "I just wanted to come see how you felt about the whole cure idea."

Pondering over what to say, Mike scrunched up his face in concentration. Courtney wasn't sure what he was thinking, but she was sure it was some way of asking for the cure without having to beg for it. There was no way he enjoyed playing the part of both Jekyll and Hyde, as Courtney called it, everyday, being cooped up inside the quarantine bay at all times.

"It's up to you, I guess," Mike finally told her. "It's your body, after all. But would I like to be normal again? Sure. Would I like to be able to hang out with my girlfriend all day everyday? Sure. But, at the same time, how much different would my life really be? I'd still be stuck here in the base." He shrugged again. "I'm not forcing anything on you, like Blainely and Al are."

"But what about-"

"But nothing," Mike interrupted. "You asked for my thoughts, and that's it. I don't want you worrying about me." But it wasn't Mike that she was worrying about, it was herself. Would she be able to live with the guilt if she left Mike in this state?

By the time she had finished with Mike, Courtney was sure of what she wanted to do. Blainely let her exit the room and she searched the lab for Alejandro, but he had left at some point, which did upset her a little. Courtney sighed, getting comfortable in a chair; this was going to be a long day.

* * *

After Courtney had run off, Zoey had dragged Gwen away. She had thought they were going after her, but they had ended up in a lounge room. Gwen figured it was hard for Zoey to leave Mike, but she did it was such bravery that Gwen didn't complain, even though her head was yelling at her to go find Courtney.

"She'll be fine," Zoey assured her more than once, but Gwen couldn't help but worry. Courtney was her friend, her only real friend, and she hated seeing anything hurt or upset her. This whole cure nonsense was bullshit to Gwen, who didn't believe in it one bit. Sure, the picture was of Courtney and the research looked official, Gwen wasn't denying the authenticity of the project, but to think that it would actually work was ludicrous.

It was a very long hour of pacing back and fore; of listening to Zoey tapping away on her phone; of not knowing if Courtney was safe or scared or in any kind of danger.

"She's with Mike," Zoey said, reading a message off the screen.

"What?"

"'_Sorry I fell asleep. Courtney's here, will talk later_.'" Before Zoey could stop her, Gwen had already left the room and was speed walking towards the lab again.

She rounded a corner, preparing a speech in her head of what she was going to say when she came face-to-face with Courtney, but instead she came face-to-face with Alejandro and Heather. He had her pushed up against the wall, her hands in his hair and one leg hitched around his waist. His hand was travelling dangerously high up her leg, and their lips looked they were molded into one. Gwen stared at them for a moment before clearing her throat. They soon jumped apart.

While Alejandro looked slightly embarrassed about getting caught, Heather had her winning smirk plastered across her face. Luckily for him, a message came through on Alejandro's walkie-talkie and he sped off, leaving Heather to clean up the mess. She pulled out a tube of lipstick and applied a generous coat to her lips without using a mirror.

"Mind explaining why your boyfriend keep flirting with my gir-friend, with my friend?" Gwen scolded herself mentally for getting caught up in the question.

"Oh, he's not my boyfriend," Heather told her, turning away and heading towards the lab. Gwen followed quickly behind. "He can flirt with whoever he wants, I don't care." But there something about the impediment in her voice that suggested otherwise.

They continued to walk to the lab, Gwen staring at the back of Heather's head, wondering what her problem was. When they arrived they found Courtney sat in a desk chair, using her foot to push herself a few inches to the right and then a few inches to the left, her eyes fixated on a spot on the floor in front of her.

Gwen rushed to her side, sitting in the chair next to her. Courtney looked up at her friend, sorrow in her eyes. Whatever was on her mind was hurting her badly.

"I'm going to do it," the brunette whispered softly. "I'm going to give them the cure."

"No, Court, you don't have to do this," Gwen assured her, reaching out and grabbing her hand. Courtney squeezed back, a small smile shining through the sadness.

"I want to do it," she said.

"You don't have to do this for Mike-"

"It's not for Mike," Courtney continued. "I want to do this for myself, okay? How would you feel if it was me who was infected and you had the only known cure, would you use it?" Gwen couldn't say she wouldn't.

They stared at each other for a while, and Gwen could still see the sadness that plagued her friend. That wasn't the full story, but Gwen didn't know if she should push. Courtney still didn't open up with explanations, even though their friendship has grown a lot closer.

Courtney nervously searched the room, making sure everyone else was not listening in. She dropped her head and scooted closer to Gwen. "Okay, I-I'll tell you the truth." Gwen frowned, but moved closer to Courtney as well. "It was back in March, a few weeks after my birthday, and I'd been at school all day when the news of the infection hitting our area was heard. I-I rushed home, but couldn't find my parents anywhere...then my father came in looking groggy and tired, and-and...and he turned. Right there before my very eyes. I watched him transform from my father into a zombie and-and-and..." Courtney wiped the tears from her eyes and Gwen wrapped her arm around Courtney's back; she knew this was going to be a hard conversation for her, but she seemed adamant to finish the story. "I was scared, I didn't really know what was going on so I hid in the attic all night long, and when the sun came up the next day I went downstairs. There was my father, sitting in the lounge in his chair, feet on the ottoman, reading the current events section of the newspaper. He looked up at me and smiles as if nothing was wrong. He looked like himself again and I wondered if I had just been having a bad nightmare...But then it happened again. I was halfway through my breakfast when he turned back into a zombie and tried to attack me. Luckily he was slow, giving me time to escape. By that time most of my town had been evacuated and I was left to rummage around other peoples houses. After another attack, I gathered a backpack and stuffed some things into it, and headed to the school where I knew I would be out of reach enough to be safe."

Gwen pulled Courtney close and let the Hispanic girl cry into her shoulder. Gwen wasn't sure of what else to do but hug her. She had never been very good at comforting others, she'd never really had much practice. The only thing she remembered was her mother drinking a bottle of wine every night after her father left because Gwen had been too young to do anything herself, but she didn't know how much comfort that left a person with.

Courtney pulled back first, walking over to the water container and pouring herself a glass. Gwen watched as Alejandro sauntered into the room, instantly noticing her.

"You're shaking, mi amor," he said gently, pulling her into a hug. Gwen hated to see it, but Courtney seemed content with a hug from him. She watched as his eyes searched the room, and for a moment she thought they were going to land on her, but they looked straight down to the other side where Heather was sat, leaning back in her desk chair, eyes narrowed on the the hugging pair. Alejandro sent her a wink and Gwen thought she was going to vomit. "Blainely told me that you were going to go ahead with the cure," the Latino told Courtney as they broke apart. She nodded her head. "I promise you we only need a small amount of blood, that's all. I'll go get the nurse." Courtney nodded again, but walked away from him before he could say anything else. She sat down next to Gwen, searching for her friends hand to hold. Gwen held her tightly, scared for her well-being, even though Courtney wanted to do this.

"Be careful with him," the older girl whispered.

"Don't start this again," Courtney argued.

"No, I mean it-"

"I don't care!" Courtney snapped, getting a few other peoples attention. Before Gwen could tell them all to mind their own business, Alejandro returned with the nurse, the one that had stuck Gwen in the arm with a needle without her consent.

"We'll finish this conversation later," Gwen promised, getting up from her seat to allow the nurse to sit. She had a whole medical kit with her which she placed on the desk behind the two chairs.

"This won't hurt very much, only a small pinch," the nurse assured Courtney, who was starting to panic slightly. Courtney had always been the picture of health, so injections and drawing blood had never been part of her life. The nurse pulled some disinfectant and a washcloth out of her medical kit and swiped Courtney's right forearm, over her birthmark. Courtney couldn't look when the nurse pulled out the needle. The pointed end was not very long, but the syringe end was. The nurse stuck it in without a second thought. For a second, Gwen was sure Courtney's blood would turn out to be some obscure color like purple, but when the syringe was full it showed that Courtney's blood looked just like anyone else's.

Once it was over, Blainely took the syringe and placed it in a Ziploc bag, exiting the room with it. Alejandro explained that she was going to be escorted back to the science lab forty miles away to work on taking the cure from Courtney's blood cells.

Courtney ignored everyone around her, too busy holding the cotton ball to her arm to stop the bleeding. It didn't take long and as soon as the nurse had run a few basic tests on her, making sure she didn't feel dizzy or anything, Gwen grabbed her by her good arm and hauled her out of the room. She was not going to let this Alejandro thing drop.

"What is your problem?" Courtney demanded once they had found an empty hallway.

"My problem is that you're not fucking listening!" Gwen yelled, not caring how loud her voice got. "I am telling you right now that Alejandro wants one thing and one thing only- the cure! He does not give two fucks about you, Courtney-"

"And you do?!"

"OF COURSE I DO!" Gwen slammed her palm against the wall next to Courtney's head. "Do you even listen to yourself? I have stuck by you for the past, what, twelve days? Making sure that you do not come under any harm because I care about you, Courtney. I care about you and I don't want to see you get hurt. And yes, Alejandro is going to hurt you because you're head over heels in puppy love and he's fucking Heather!"

Courtney swallowed the bile that rose up in her throat. "...You're lying," she countered, but she wasn't entirely sure she believed herself when she said it.

"I am not lying," Gwen whispered, pushing herself off the wall. "But if you really don't believe me, we can ask Zoey."

* * *

They found the red haired girl exactly where Gwen had left her. She was spread out on the beaten sofa, cell phone in hand, texting Mike about God knows what. Gwen had learnt that the two of them never seemed to run out of things to talk about. And when they got her talking to them, Courtney realized just how right Gwen had been.

"They're not exclusively dating or anything, I mean, Al fucks pretty much anything with legs in this place," she explained. "But that doesn't stop him from ending up in Heather's bed at the end of the night, every night. He has solid feelings for her, and she has some for him too, but she's less open about them. But because she won't admit anything, he tries to make her jealous, hence the constant flirting. Sorry, Court."

Courtney felt as if her chest was collapsing in on itself. She couldn't breathe and her heart was trying to beat its way right out of its cage. Gwen tried to wrap her arm around Courtney's shoulders, but she was batted away. Courtney didn't want to be around anyone. She felt so stupid for having believed that Alejandro had genuine feelings for her, of course he was just using her for the cure, and to make Heather feel jealous? That just made it even worse.

She retreated up to her assigned bedroom at turtle pace, but once she got there she collapsed head first onto her pillow. She wanted to cry but couldn't bring herself to do it. She felt so betrayed, so heartbroken, but the tears just wouldn't fall. She blamed herself. Gwen was right, it was puppy love, a stupid childish infatuation. Courtney felt so immature now, looking back on everything she had over the last twenty-four hours. Aimless giggling, the pointless blushing, acting like nothing more than a school girl when he had a real woman at his beck and call.

Gwen sat down in the chair beside the hospital bed, awkwardly stroking Courtney's hair. She didn't really know how to make it better, but she had an idea.

"Do you trust me?" Gwen asked. Courtney hesitated before nodding into her pillow. No matter what words spilled form her mouth, she still trusted Gwen more than anyone else. "Then I want you to know that I have a plan. We're getting out of here tonight, no going back, okay?"


	8. Where It Gets Heated

**Chapter Seven**

**Where It Gets Heated**

They waited until night had fallen and most people had retreated to their beds. Courtney could hear the soft snores of her three roommates before she slipped out of her bed and down the hallway. Gwen was only in the room next door and she crept in quietly. She found her friend watching the guards from the window.

"Gwen," she called out as quietly as she could, but her voice was pretty loud.

"Escape quieter," Zoey mumbled, turning over and stuffing her pillow over her head. Courtney smiled and Gwen led the two of them from the room. She had informed Zoey of their plan and she had given her her cell phone number for emergencies. Gwen prayed there wouldn't be any emergencies, but in the world they were living, anything could happen to them.

Together, they crept down the stairway and past the cafeteria. In the day and a half they had been at the survivor base they had learned their way around quite well. It was easy to get to ambulance bay without any fuss because they knew what areas of the hospital to avoid.

They came face-to-face with a scrawny boy who started nervously shaking when he saw the two girls approach him, as if he still believed girls had cooties. It definitely was not the same person that had met them when they had arrived.

Gwen gave him a smirk, "Hey there." She placed both her hands on his desk. "We need our backpacks and weapons, as well as a set of keys to one of the jeeps."

"I-I'm not s-supposed to g-give those out," the boy replied, stumbling over his words from nerves. "Alejandro said-"

"Alejandro sent us," Courtney said, leaning over the desk, biting her bottom lip in her best sexy smile. It wasn't well rehearsed, but the boy didn't see to know the difference.

"Alejandro didn't say-"

"Listen, you can call him up and ask if you want," Gwen reasoned, motioning towards the walkie-talkie. "But I'm telling you right now that he is down in the lab with Mike, something serious is going on and I doubt he'd want to be disturbed right now. He's sending us out to scope out the city for him, is that a problem?"

"I-I...I uh...I guess I-I don't want to disturb him." The boy got to his shaky feet and unlocked the door behind him, asking for their names. Courtney and Gwen grinned at each other. The boy returned with their backpacks which they snatched right up. There was an extra set of bullets with Gwen's gun now and Courtney's baseball bat had been polished over. She inspected it carefully before Gwen kicked her foot and motioned for them to leave. Courtney grabbed the keys from the boy with another smile of thanks as they headed outside.

It was cold outside and they didn't have jackets with them. They stuck close to the building perimeter, skating their way along the shadows to make sure the guards didn't spot them. They made their way towards the car garage which was in the parking structure next to the hospital. Zoey had given them all the instructions they needed and had said if it weren't for Mike then she would have joined them, though Zoey didn't seem like much of a rule breaker to them.

There weren't any guards at the parking structure since there wasn't really anyone around to steal a car. Courtney clicked the alarm button on the keys and a black land rover beeped on the far end of the structure. The two girls half ran towards their car and climbed in excitedly. Courtney put the car into reverse and backed out of the spot with ease, having learnt a lot of driving tips since the first time Gwen had gotten in the car with her. She pulled out of the parking structure and sped off down the dirt road that hopefully would lead them to another town.

Gwen had a Cheshire cat grin plastered on her face, but Courtney was a lot more solemn. Gwen was excited to be back on the road, Courtney was still heartbroken. The older girl wondered if she should have offered to take the wheel in case Courtney's crashed out of anger, but driving seemed to sooth Courtney in a way that Gwen's awkward comforting had not.

They drove for an hour before they decided to stop. There was definitely no one following them now. Courtney pulled into the driveway of a larger house than what they were used to. They both scrambled out and upon checking her watch, Gwen discovered it was nearing three AM already. They were both exhausted, but had enough adrenaline to keep them awake until next Tuesday- whenever next Tuesday was.

Courtney dropped their bags into the spacious lounge room, onto the floor by one of the three purple plush couches. She collapsed onto one with a content smile, that was before she was easily reminded of her heartbreak. Courtney curled up into a ball, moaning to herself.

Gwen did a quick sweep through of the downstairs, locking everything she could and shutting all the drapes. She searched the kitchen for food and found it mostly stocked. In the top shelf of the refrigerator she found a chilled bottle of red wine. Pulling it out she found it unopened. Gwen bit her lip, staring at the open doorway that led into the lounge room where Courtney was undoubtedly still having a hard time. Quietly, Gwen raided the cupboards until she found two wine glasses. She walked into the next room and set them down on the coffee table, unfastening the wine lid. She nudged Courtney with her elbow as she poured her a generous glass full.

"Here, drink this," she encouraged.

Courtney sat up groggily. "I'm not a big drinker," she said, rubbing her tired eyes.

"It'll make you feel better," Gwen replied, taking a sip of her own.

Even though neither were very keen drinkers, and both were underage, the bottle didn't last very long. They managed two and a half large glass fulls each before it was finished and they were slurring their words.

"But just," Courtney hiccuped, "why can't I find a decent guy?" She asked, motioning around the room with her arms. "Why can't I have a nice boyfriend? Why do they all got to be douche bags?" She licked the inside of her glass before setting it down on the table.

"You'll find someone," Gwen told her, a pout on her lips. "You're beautiful and pretty," she tugged on Courtney's hair, "anyone would be a fool to not want you."

"Thanks, Gwen," Courtney sniffled, resting her head on Gwen's shoulder. Gwen hugged her tightly until Courtney pulled back. "Time for bed," she yawned, trying to stand. She instantly fell back down, giggling. Gwen joined in for a second before falling quiet again. Courtney turned her head to the side, wondering why she had stopped, but realized they were now a lot closer together. Gwen's eyes were moving between Courtney's and lower down her face, and the younger girl was sure she could see the thoughts turning in Gwen's head. Before she could ask what she was thinking, Gwen leaned forward and pressed her lips to Courtney's. Courtney didn't pull away, in fact she leaned in closer. It was obviously not her first kiss, but it was her first kiss in over a year and her first kiss with another girl. Gwen, on the other hand, had more experience.

Gwen laid one hand on Courtney's waist and both of Courtney's hands were in Gwen's hair, pulling her head closer. Their mouths opened and the kiss deepened. Gwen slid her tongue across Courtney's lips, earning a small moan from the younger girl. She slid it into her mouth without caution and Courtney sucked and teased on it. They moved so that they were lying down, Courtney squashed between Gwen and the sofa- not that she was complaining.

The next morning both girls woke with a headache. They were wrapped up in each others arms on the sofa, where they had drifted to sleep halfway through their make-out session.

Courtney was the first to roll away in search for some Tylenol while Gwen continued to lie on her back, staring at the ceiling. The white paint was starting to go moldy and she started making patterns in her mind.

It wasn't exactly awkward between them that day, but they did spend a lot more time not talking to each other than what they usually did. They would always find something to talk about, to occupy their day as they traveled, but today was more silent for the longest time. It didn't help that they hadn't woke up until mid-afternoon, and their hangovers weren't exactly great for driving. They gave a silent agreement that maybe they should spend another night in this house before leaving and by the time evening had come in and the sun was starting to set outside, Gwen was sick and tired of all the empty noises.

"It was really...brave of you," she said. "You know, yesterday, talking about your dad like that." Courtney nodded her head. They were sat on separate sofas across from each other. The brunette couldn't bring herself to look Gwen in the eye. "I um...I don't have a dad." She had never told anyone that before, though her old friends had known due to the lack of manly presence in her house. The only man in her life had been her brother, and the odd boyfriend or two. But she never really cared about the boyfriends, only her family.

"He left when I was three," Gwen continued. "I...I don't really know why. I guess after L-Liam was born he just didn't want to stick around anymore." She took a deep breath, trying to fight the memories as she told the stories. "My mom was never the same after that." She stopped, leaning her head back against the back of the sofa. Her neck cried in pain from the awkward position she had spent last night in, but she didn't care. The pain in her neck was nothing compared to the pain in the rest of her body.

Courtney bit her lip. Pushing aside the fact that she didn't want to face Gwen in a proper conversation, she got to her feet and made her way across the room. Tucking her legs beneath her, Courtney settled beside her friend on the other sofa. She sighed deeply, getting ready to tell a different story.

"I don't know where my mom is," she admitted. "I don't know if she's infected or dead or...I don't know."

"My mom's dead." It was quiet, but Courtney heard the words that followed. "I killed her..."

Courtney started to shake, turning to look Gwen in the eyes for the first time all day, but before she could say anything, there was a loud slam against the door followed by a dead groan. The brunette jumped to her feet and ran to the window. She peeked through the curtains and screamed. The face staring back at her was not her reflection at all. It was that of an infected with sunken eyes and peeling, grey skin.

The front door splintered and Gwen dived for her handgun that was resting on the coffee table.

"Grab the bags!" She yelled at Courtney, running into the kitchen. She checked through the kitchen window to find only a few zombies hanging around in the back yard. The Hispanic teen came sliding into the room, tossing Gwen her backpack while swinging her own over her shoulders. "We'll have to run for it." Courtney furrowed her brows. This was not what she wanted to hear. Running meant attracting attention and they would no doubt follow them no matter where they went. There wasn't enough time to hot wire a car and their stolen jeep was parked out front where the majority were accumulating.

Gwen slid open the door just a crack, and luckily it didn't squeak. Her gun was poised in one hand while she used the other to hold the door open for Courtney. The brunette had her baseball bat held high, ready to swing. They shuffled down the garden where Gwen had seen a kink in the fence.

It didn't, however, go smoothly. They were halfway down the garden when one of the zombies stepped out from a shadow. Gwen recoiled in shock as it's mouth opened, ready to take a bite from her. Courtney swung her bat, hitting the zombie square in the jaw as Gwen jumped away in shock. Blood splattered from the infected's mouth and Courtney cringed in horror before grabbing Gwen's hand and continuing to run down the garden. The commotion had got the attention of several other infected and they were now being attacked from all corners. Gwen shot her gun as best she could, but it was difficult to keep aim in the dark. Courtney swung her baseball bat mostly, hitting zombies in the head, letting them crumple to the floor. It may not have been enough to kill them, but it was enough to leave them hurt, dazed and confused- if the people under the infection even felt those things anymore.

They made it through the fence and through a few more gardens before daring to take an ally way through to the main street. It turned out to not be the best decision on Gwen's behalf. They were greeted by an angry mob of infected, all wanting just one thing; their next meal.

The pair ran right, away from the majority. Gwen had already used up all of her bullets and was now eating into her second set. She had wanted to save them, but this was not the time for saving, this was the time for using every resource she had.

The continued to run, but the zombies were too slow to catch up immediately. But they weren't in shape enough to run for very long. When they both stopped, doubling over with cramps in their sides. Gwen took the opportunity to climb up onto the closest car she could find.

"Gwen..." Courtney warned. She could see the mob starting to zone in and as she searched for an exit, Courtney found there not to be one. No matter where she looked there were at least a few zombies appearing from the darkness. "Get down! We have to go right now!" But Gwen didn't budge. "What are you even doing?" Courtney stressed. She swung her head around again, raising her bat in case anything came too close.

"I'm looking for an escape," Gwen hissed back. She squinted her eyes, but there was no hope. Every direction she turned to was getting more and more crowded. She turned to Courtney and helped her climb onto the car too. "Well, we're screwed."

Courtney glared at her, almost blaming Gwen for stopping. The older girl bit her lip, swallowing words that she knew she shouldn't say. But she said them anyway.

"If this is the end-"

"No," Courtney cut her off, shaking her head back and fore. "You're not doing this."

"Shh." Gwen continued, "I just-I want you to know that...that you've been a really good friend to me, the best friend a girl could ever ask for during a zombie apocalypse." Tears stained Courtney's eyes and she tried her hardest to blink them away. "A-And..And I don't know...I like you, I guess. I like really like you and-" She was cut off my Courtney once again, but this time it was her pressing a fleeting kiss to her lips that did it.

"Let's kick some zombie ass."

* * *

**COURN FEELS. **


End file.
